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Life in a Mediaeval City Illustrated by York in the XVth Century - Edwin Benson · A Tale of Two Cities

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Speaker 1: Chapters one and two of Life in a Medieval City.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Peter Yearsley. Life in
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Speaker 1: a Medieval City Illustrated by York in the fifteenth Century
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Speaker 1: by Edwin Benson, Chapter one introduction. In English history, the
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Speaker 1: fifteenth century is the last of the centuries that form
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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, which were preceded by the Age of
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Speaker 1: Racial Settlement and followed by that of the Great Renaissance.
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Speaker 1: Although the active beginnings of this new era are to
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Speaker 1: be observed in the fifteenth century, yet this century belongs
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Speaker 1: essentially to the Middle Ages. Perhaps the most attractive feature
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Speaker 1: of the Middle Ages is that they were so intensely human.
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Speaker 1: A naive spirit appears in their formal literature, as in
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Speaker 1: Chaucer's account of the Canterbury Pilgrims, in their decorated religious manuscripts,
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Speaker 1: in their thought, and very characteristically in their architecture, which
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Speaker 1: combines a simple naturalness with a bold and daring ingenuity.
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Speaker 1: From columns, the constructional motive of which is so simple
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Speaker 1: and natural, and walls pierced with windows. They erected systems
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Speaker 1: of lofty arches and high stone vaulted roofs, the stability
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Speaker 1: of which depended on very skilled balancing of thrust and counterthrust.
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Speaker 1: To day, medieval buildings are to be found all over England.
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Speaker 1: The majority of them are examples of an architecture that
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Speaker 1: has not been surpassed for majesty, beauty, size, and constructional skill.
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Speaker 1: Such buildings, without the help of the literary and other memorials,
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Speaker 1: testify by themselves to the greatness of the Middle Ages.
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Speaker 1: Through the fifteenth century, England continued to be in a
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Speaker 1: state of political unrest. There were wars and risings both
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Speaker 1: abroad and at home. For besides sides the Hundred Years
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Speaker 1: War from thirteen thirty seven to fourteen fifty three and
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Speaker 1: the Wars of the Roses fourteen fifty five to fourteen
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Speaker 1: eighty five, there were wars of the Welsh and the Scots,
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Speaker 1: as well as disorders made by powerful, intriguing barons. The
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Speaker 1: barons and great landowners took advantage of the weak royal
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Speaker 1: rule to increase their own power. Parliament, especially the House
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Speaker 1: of Commons, succeeded in the first half of the century
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Speaker 1: in strengthening its constitutional position, But during the Wars of
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Speaker 1: the Roses, it became less truly representative of the solid
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Speaker 1: part of the nation, the middle class, and more and
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Speaker 1: more a party machine worked by the baronial factions. The
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Speaker 1: proportion of people wanting peace and firm government steadily increased,
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Speaker 1: and when the internisigane. Wars of the Roses, which affected
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Speaker 1: the lords and kings far more than the people, were
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Speaker 1: followed by the protection and order provided without excessive cost
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Speaker 1: by the tudors. It was the people who most welcomed
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Speaker 1: the checks. The towns were, however, comparatively little disturbed by
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Speaker 1: these perpetual disorders. The mayors and corporations, as a rule,
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Speaker 1: guided their cities through difficult times with politic shrewdness. Town
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Speaker 1: life developed through flourishing trade and an increasing sense of
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Speaker 1: municipal unity and municipal importance. Chapter Two Important factors affecting
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Speaker 1: the history of York A geographical position. Among the factors
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Speaker 1: affecting this particular city, geographical position is evidently the most important.
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Speaker 1: It is to this, combined with the consequent military value
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Speaker 1: of the site, that York owes its origin as a city,
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Speaker 1: its importance in the Middle Ages and its practical importance
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Speaker 1: to day. York, which is the natural center for the
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Speaker 1: north of England, is the half way house between London
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Speaker 1: and Edinburgh, and is on the shortest and quickest land
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Speaker 1: or air route. However, the journey is made between these
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Speaker 1: two capitals, the Ooze and Humber have enabled it always
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Speaker 1: to be within navigable distance of the northeast coast. The
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Speaker 1: city itself is situated on an advantageous site, in the
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Speaker 1: center of a great plain, the north and south ends
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Speaker 1: of which are open. The surrounding hills and valleys are
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Speaker 1: so disposed that a large number of rivers radiate towards
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Speaker 1: the center of the plain. Civilization, if we must rank
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Speaker 1: the ultra fierce Norsemen, for instance, among its exponents, proceeded
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Speaker 1: westwards from the coast, and wave after wave of the
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Speaker 1: invading peoples crossed with ease the eastern and northeastern hills,
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Speaker 1: which are far less formidable than those on the west.
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Speaker 1: York was already an important place in the days of
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Speaker 1: Britain's making, the days when the land was in the
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Speaker 1: melting pot. As far as race and nationality are concerned.
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Speaker 1: B military value of its position, York is situated on
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Speaker 1: the higher ground in the angle made by the rivers
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Speaker 1: Ooze and Foss at their junction. A little to the south,
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Speaker 1: the east and the west there are low ridges of mound.
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Speaker 1: The outer main series of hills which border the central
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Speaker 1: plain are some dozen miles away, their outer faces being
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Speaker 1: more or less parallel and running very roughly north and south.
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Speaker 1: It seems clear that the site was chosen from the
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Speaker 1: first for its immediate defensive value, the direct result of
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Speaker 1: its geographical features, The position was of both tactical and
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Speaker 1: strategic importance in Roman times. However, its tactical value was
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Speaker 1: decreased when the Great Wall was built that stretched, with
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Speaker 1: its lines of mound, ditch, stone, rampart and road, and
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Speaker 1: its series of camps and forts, from near the mouth
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Speaker 1: of the Tyne to Solway Firth. Henceforth, the Wall marked
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Speaker 1: the debatable frontier, but York never lost its strategic value.
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Speaker 1: It was thus used by the Romans William the First,
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Speaker 1: Edward the First, Edward the Second, and Edward the Third
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Speaker 1: in their occupation of and their expeditions against the North.
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Speaker 1: It has served as a base, depot and military headquarters
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Speaker 1: for century. See political importance York. Then, whatever its name,
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Speaker 1: for it had many names or condition inevitably became an
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Speaker 1: occupied place, a stronghold, or a town. From earliest times
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Speaker 1: when the Church attained great importance in the North, York,
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Speaker 1: in addition to its natural and military values, became in
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Speaker 1: seven hundred thirty five an ecclesiastical metropolis. For from this
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Speaker 1: date the Archbishop of York was not only the ruler
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Speaker 1: of the Diocese of York, but in addition, piritual head
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Speaker 1: of the church in the North of England. Further, there
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Speaker 1: were established in the city branches of the civil government.
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Speaker 1: Business of the state, both civil and military, and of
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Speaker 1: the church was regularly conducted at York from early times.
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Speaker 1: This political importance lasted long and is intimately connected with
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Speaker 1: many events in the city's history. The fort and military
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Speaker 1: defenses were renewed from time to time, and staff work
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Speaker 1: and general administration, whether Roman or Edwardian, were conducted from York.
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Speaker 1: The king, from whom York was rented by the citizens,
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Speaker 1: had his official representatives, with their offices permanently established here.
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Speaker 1: The siege of sixteen forty four after the Royalist defeat
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Speaker 1: at Marston Moor, was due mainly to the political importance
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Speaker 1: of the city in Danish times there were kings of York.
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Speaker 1: The archbishops, besides owning large areas of land in and
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Speaker 1: around the city, had their palace in the city. Monasteries
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Speaker 1: grew up and flourished till the dissolution. Churches and other
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Speaker 1: religious buildings were everywhere. Further, from century to century, York
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Speaker 1: was the home of important nobles of the realm. This
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Speaker 1: political importance has persisted through the centuries. York still claims
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Speaker 1: its traditional rank of second city in the Kingdom. End
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Speaker 1: of chapter two, Chapter three of Life in a Medieval City.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
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Speaker 1: Peter Yearsley. Life in a Medieval City Illustrated by York
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Speaker 1: in the fifteenth Century by Edwin Benson. Chapter three appearance
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Speaker 1: a general appearance a general view of fifteenth century York.
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Speaker 1: Everwyk in Anglo French and Eboracum in Latin, would give
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Speaker 1: the impression of a very compact city within fortifications. Almost
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Speaker 1: immediately it would be noticed how the three great elements
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Speaker 1: of national society were very clearly reflected in the general appearance. First,
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Speaker 1: the Church, the tremendous and ubiquitous power of which is
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Speaker 1: emphasized by the strikingly beautiful and wonderfully constructed massive minster,
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Speaker 1: but so recently completed, standing with its more than five
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Speaker 1: hundred feet of length, its central tower two hundred feet high,
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Speaker 1: most of its roofs a hundred feet or more above
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Speaker 1: the ground, dwarfing the petty storied dwellings. This is one
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Speaker 1: great church in brilliant contrast. In another quarter, adjoining the
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Speaker 1: city is the great abbey Church of Saint Mary, crowned
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Speaker 1: by a lofty and magnificent spire rising above the equally
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Speaker 1: fine conventual buildings. All over the city are seen the
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Speaker 1: churches and buildings of other monastic and religious houses. The
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Speaker 1: background of dwellings and shops built in a similar style
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Speaker 1: is cut by a few winding streets and studied with
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Speaker 1: the towers, spires, and roofs of the multitude of parish churches.
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Speaker 1: The intense and far reaching influence of the Church in
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Speaker 1: all phases of life is indelibly marked on this city.
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Speaker 1: The great influence of the royal state, second only to
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Speaker 1: that of the Church, appears in the enclosing fortifications, and
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Speaker 1: especially in the solid stants of the castle, where the
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Speaker 1: keep stands out stoutly on its fortified mound. The whole
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Speaker 1: castle self, supporting within its own defenses, its massive walls,
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Speaker 1: broad moats outer and inner wards, protective gateways, drawbridges, and
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Speaker 1: dus other dactical devices, conveys an impression of power. On
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Speaker 1: the Bishop Hills side of the river, there remains the
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Speaker 1: mound Bailey Hill, on which the other castle was erected
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Speaker 1: by order of William the Conqueror. The whole city is
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Speaker 1: enclosed by defensive works, consisting of an embattled wall on
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Speaker 1: a mound, with a moat or protecting ditch running parallel
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Speaker 1: to it at intervals. Along the walls there are towers.
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Speaker 1: Where the four main roads enter the city, there are
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Speaker 1: the four gateways or bars, high enough to act as
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Speaker 1: watch towers and fit by their solid construction to offer
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Speaker 1: a stout defense. The Royal state keeps its stern watch
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Speaker 1: around and within the third great element. The people are
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Speaker 1: represented by the few narrow, winding streets and the crowded houses,
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Speaker 1: sending up blue smoke from their hearths, clustering round the
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Speaker 1: great buildings of church and state. The town itself is
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Speaker 1: almost entirely in the eastern sector of the city. On
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Speaker 1: the western side, the houses are grouped along the road
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Speaker 1: of the bank and between Micklegate Bar and ouse Bridge.
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Speaker 1: There are several monasteries and churches in this section. Also,
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Speaker 1: the third estate, the closely living masses the people, has
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Speaker 1: its outstanding buildings, but these are of comparatively local and
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Speaker 1: small importance. Although the city and guild halls stand out
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Speaker 1: utilitarian yet beautiful above the dwelling houses, yet they are
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Speaker 1: not at all so prominent as the great erections of
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Speaker 1: the church and the state. A glance over the city
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Speaker 1: to day from the walls of the top of a
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Speaker 1: church tower emphasizes the dominance of the cathedral over the
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Speaker 1: whole city. The castle keep Clifford's Tower is still an
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Speaker 1: important feature in the view. There were as rivals, neither
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Speaker 1: factories nor great commercial offices in the fifteenth century city.
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Speaker 1: Saint Clement's Nunnery and six churches, of which three were
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Speaker 1: not far from Warngate Bar and one was near Monk Bar,
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Speaker 1: were actually outside the city walls, without the city and
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Speaker 1: the cultivated land near by. Most of the country consisted
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Speaker 1: of great stretches of forest, that is, wood, marsh, moor, wasteland.
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Speaker 1: Footnote forest is derived from Latin fortis meaning outside without
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Speaker 1: the city. End footnote. This surrounding forest land was crossed
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Speaker 1: by the few high roads leading to and from the city,
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Speaker 1: which they entered through the bars. The country was not
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Speaker 1: all wild and tenantless were here and there Scattered about
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Speaker 1: were baronial castles and estates, and monastic houses and lands,
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Speaker 1: all of which had their farming in the forests. There
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Speaker 1: were villages, each consisting of a few houses grouped together
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Speaker 1: for common security, where lived minor officials and men working
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Speaker 1: in the forest. The great forest of Galtries, to the
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Speaker 1: north of York was a royal domain in the fifteenth century.
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Speaker 1: The population of York, the greatest city of the north,
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Speaker 1: was about fourteen thousand. Newcastle was the next greatest, being
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Speaker 1: one of the ten or twelve leading cities of mediae Evil, England,
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Speaker 1: which had a total population of about two and a
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Speaker 1: half millions. The inhabitants of York registered in nineteen eleven
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Speaker 1: numbered eighty three thousand, eight hundred and two. Within the
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Speaker 1: city there was a number of sub entities, each self
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Speaker 1: contained and definitely marked off, often by enclosing embattled walls,
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Speaker 1: such was the Minster, which stood within its close. The
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Speaker 1: liberty of the Minster of Saint Peter included the parts
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Speaker 1: of the city immediately round the Minster, the Archbishop's Palace
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Speaker 1: and the Bedern, a small district in the city where
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Speaker 1: some of the Minster clergy lived collegiately, and groups of
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Speaker 1: houses and odd dwellings scattered throughout other parts of the
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Speaker 1: city and the county and elsewhere. Individual monasteries formed further
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Speaker 1: such sub entities, for instance, Saint Mary's Abbey, which was
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Speaker 1: actually outside the city walls but within its own defensive walls,
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Speaker 1: the Franciscan Friary near the castle, Holy Trinity Priory, the
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Speaker 1: Royal Hospital of Saint Leonard. The bus, which obviously had
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Speaker 1: to be enclosed and capable of maintaining and enduring isolation,
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Speaker 1: was independent of the city. Each of these ecclesiastical institutions
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Speaker 1: enjoyed a large measure of freedom from the rule of
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Speaker 1: the municipal authorities. The city was also subdivided into parishes,
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Speaker 1: which of course were not enclosed by walls. The parish boundaries,
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Speaker 1: although less well defined than those of the areas above mentioned,
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Speaker 1: were none the less distinctly marked b streets. Streets as
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Speaker 1: we use the word to day, were quite few in number.
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Speaker 1: They were usually called gates and were mostly continuations of
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Speaker 1: the Great high roads that came into and through the
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Speaker 1: city after crossing the wild country that covered most of
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Speaker 1: northern England, a desert in which a city was an
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Speaker 1: oasis and a sanctuary. In the lofty and graceful open
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Speaker 1: lantern Tower of All Saints Pavement, a lamp was hung
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Speaker 1: to guide belated travelers to the safety and hospitality that
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Speaker 1: obtained within the city walls. For the same purpose, a
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Speaker 1: bell was rung at Sir michaels Ooh's Bridge. There were
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Speaker 1: a few buildings along the high roads, just outside the
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Speaker 1: great entrances the bars. Besides the few hovels and huts,
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Speaker 1: there were hospitals for travelers. There were four hospitals for lepers,
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Speaker 1: the most wretched of all, the sufferers from medieval lack
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Speaker 1: of cleanliness. Most of the streets were mere alleys passages
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Speaker 1: between houses and groups of buildings. They were very narrow,
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Speaker 1: and often the sky could hardly be seen from them
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Speaker 1: because of the over hanging upper stories of the buildings
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Speaker 1: along each side. Goods in the Middle Ages and right
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Speaker 1: down to the nineteenth century were carried in towns by hand.
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Speaker 1: Carriages and wagons and carts were not very numerous and
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Speaker 1: would have no need to proceed beyond the main streets
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Speaker 1: into the open squares. If men must journey off their
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Speaker 1: own feet, they rode horses. Pack Horses were used regularly
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Speaker 1: to carry goods, where nowadays a horse saw more probably
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Speaker 1: a steam or motor engine would easily pull the goods
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Speaker 1: conveniently placed on a cart or lorry. The paving of
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Speaker 1: rough cobbles and ample mud was distinctly poor. There was
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Speaker 1: no adequate drainage. In fact, there was very little attempt
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Speaker 1: at any beyond the provision of gutters down the middle
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Speaker 1: or at the sides of the streets. There were no
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Speaker 1: regular street lights, and pavements, when they existed, were too
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Speaker 1: meager to be of much use to pedestrians. Streets led
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Speaker 1: to the two open market places of this medieval city.
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Speaker 1: Both of them, Thursday Market now called Saint Sampson's Square
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Speaker 1: and Pavement, which was a broad street with a market
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Speaker 1: cross near one end, were used as markets, but for
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Speaker 1: different kinds of produce. Some markets, such as the cattle market,
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Speaker 1: were held in the streets. These two market places were
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Speaker 1: the principal public open spaces parts of a town that
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Speaker 1: are given such importance in modern town planning schemes. Other
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Speaker 1: open spaces were the cloisters and gardens of the monasteries,
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Speaker 1: the courts of the castle, the graveyards of the churches,
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Speaker 1: and private gardens. In spite of these, and the passage
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Speaker 1: of a tire river through the city, it cannot be
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Speaker 1: denied that the inhabitants of our medieval city lived in
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Speaker 1: rather dirty and badly ventilated surroundings. The river Ooze was
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Speaker 1: crossed by one bridge, which was of stone, with houses
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Speaker 1: and shops of wood built up from the body of
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Speaker 1: the bridge. The arches were small and afford a striking
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Speaker 1: contrast to later constructions, in which a wide central arch
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Speaker 1: replaced the two central small arches. The quays were just
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Speaker 1: below the bridge. At one end of Ooze Bridge was
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Speaker 1: Saint William's Chapel, a beautiful little church, as we know
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Speaker 1: from the fragments of it that remain footnote. A church
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Speaker 1: that was in a parish but was not the parish
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Speaker 1: church was called a chapel. The parish church was the
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Speaker 1: principal and parents church of all within the parish end footnote.
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Speaker 1: Adjoining the chapel was the Sheriff's Court. On the next
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Speaker 1: story was the exchequer Court. Then there was the common prison,
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Speaker 1: called the Kidcote, while above these were other prisons which
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Speaker 1: continued round the back of the chapel. Next to the
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Speaker 1: prisons were the council chamber and muniment room. Opposite the
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Speaker 1: chapel were the court house called the toll Booth footnote.
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Speaker 1: Compare the toll Booth Edinburgh and the toll House Yarmouth
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Speaker 1: End footnote and the debtor's prison and a maison dieu
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Speaker 1: that is a kind of almshouse. The present streets called
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Speaker 1: shambles formerly Mangagate footnote, French monnges End footnote, Finkle Street, Jubbergate,
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Speaker 1: Petergate and especially Shambles. Little shambles and the passages leading
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Speaker 1: from them help one to realize the appearance of medieval
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Speaker 1: streets and ways. See buildings. Dwelling houses ranged from big
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Speaker 1: town residences of noble or distinguished families, by way of
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Speaker 1: the beautifully decorated, costly houses of the rich middle class
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Speaker 1: merchants to the humble dwellings of the poorest inhabitants. Every
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Speaker 1: type of house, from the palace to the hovel was
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Speaker 1: well represented. The Archbishop's palace, consisting of hall, chapel, quadrangle,
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Speaker 1: mint and gateway with prison, was near the Minster Beyond
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Speaker 1: the fine thirteenth century chapel, now part of the Minster
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Speaker 1: Library Buildings, hardly a trace of this undoubtedly splendid residence
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Speaker 1: is left. The Percys had a great mansion in Wollongate,
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Speaker 1: in other parts of the mansions of the Scropes and
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Speaker 1: the Vavasurs. It is, however, the houses of the prosperous
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Speaker 1: traders that are the most interesting, for in them we
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Speaker 1: see the kind of house a man built from the
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Speaker 1: results of successful business. Most houses were of timber, those
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Speaker 1: of the more wealthy were of stone and timber. The
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Speaker 1: use of half timbering, when the face of a building
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Speaker 1: consisted of woodwork and plaster, made houses and streets very picturesque.
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Speaker 1: The woodwork was often artistically carved. Each story was made
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Speaker 1: to overhang the one below it, so that an umbrella.
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Speaker 1: If umbrella had been in use, then would have been
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Speaker 1: almost a superfluity, if not a needless luxury, besides being
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Speaker 1: impossib able to manipulate. In the narrow streets and ways
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Speaker 1: of a medieval city, the upper stories of two houses
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Speaker 1: facing each other across a street were often very close.
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Speaker 1: Usually there were no more than three stories. The roofs
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Speaker 1: were very steep and covered generally with tiles, but in
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Speaker 1: the case of the smaller dwellings with thatch from a housetop,
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Speaker 1: the view across the neighborhood would be of a huddled
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Speaker 1: medley of red tiled roofs, all broken up with gables
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Speaker 1: and tiny dormer windows. There would be no regularity, just
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Speaker 1: a jumble of patches of red tiled roofing. The present
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Speaker 1: streets called Shambles Pavement, Petergate and stone Gate contain excellent
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Speaker 1: examples of medieval domestic architecture. Shops were distinguished by having
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Speaker 1: the front of the ground floor arranged as a showroom,
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Speaker 1: warehouse or business room, which was open to the street.
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Speaker 1: The trader lived at his shop. In the case of
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Speaker 1: a butcher's, for example, the front part of the shutters
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Speaker 1: that covered the unglazed window at night was let down
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Speaker 1: in business hours, so that it hung over the footwork
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Speaker 1: on it were exhibited the joints of meat. Butcher's slaughter
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Speaker 1: houses were then as now private premises and right in
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Speaker 1: the heart of the city. The rooms in the houses
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Speaker 1: were quite small, with low ceilings, the small windows, whether
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Speaker 1: they were merely fitted with wooden shutters or glazed with
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Speaker 1: many small panes kept together with strips of lead lighted
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Speaker 1: the rooms, but poorly. The closeness of the houses made
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Speaker 1: internal lighting still less effective. The interior walls were of
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Speaker 1: timbering and plaster, often white or colour washed. Footnote ballpaper,
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Speaker 1: which still bears the influence of the hangings that it replaced,
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Speaker 1: came into general use early in the nineteenth century. End
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Speaker 1: footnote paneling was used occasionally. The ventilation and hygienic conditions
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Speaker 1: generally were far from good, as may be imagined from
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Speaker 1: a consideration of this smallness of the houses, the compactness
21:53
Speaker 1: of the city, particularly the parts occupied by the people,
21:57
Speaker 1: and especially of the primitive system of sanitation, which was
22:00
Speaker 1: content to use the front street as a main sewer.
22:04
Speaker 1: There were, of course no drains. At most there was
22:06
Speaker 1: a gutter along the middle of a street or at
22:09
Speaker 1: each side of the roadway. It was the traditional practice
22:12
Speaker 1: to dump house and workshop refuse into the streets. Some
22:16
Speaker 1: of it was carried along by rain water, but generally
22:19
Speaker 1: it remained. In any case, it was noxious and dangerous.
22:23
Speaker 1: There was legislation on the subject, for the evil was
22:26
Speaker 1: already notorious in the fourteenth century. The first parliamentary attempt
22:30
Speaker 1: to restrain people in towns generally from thus corrupting and
22:33
Speaker 1: infecting the air, is dated thirteen eighty eight. The many
22:37
Speaker 1: visits of distinguished people and public processions always conferred an
22:41
Speaker 1: incidental boon on the city, for one of the essentials
22:44
Speaker 1: of preparation was giving the main streets a good cleaning.
22:47
Speaker 1: There is no wonder that plagues perpetually harassed the people
22:50
Speaker 1: of medieval times and reduced the population miserably. The plague
22:55
Speaker 1: never disappeared till towns were largely rebuilt on a more
22:58
Speaker 1: commodious scale in the next Great building Era, which began
23:02
Speaker 1: in sixteen sixty six in London and in the early
23:05
Speaker 1: years of the eighteenth century elsewhere. No advance was made
23:09
Speaker 1: in sanitation till the Victorian age, when town sanitation was
23:13
Speaker 1: completely revolutionized and for the first time efficiently organized. The
23:19
Speaker 1: house fire was of wood and peat, though coal was
23:21
Speaker 1: also used for artificial lighting. Oil lamps, wicks in oil,
23:26
Speaker 1: and candles were used. A light was obtained from flint
23:29
Speaker 1: and tinder, the latter being ignited by spark got from
23:33
Speaker 1: striking the flint with a piece of metal. Rooms were
23:36
Speaker 1: furnished with chairs, tables, benches, chests, bedsteads, and in some
23:41
Speaker 1: cases tub shaped baths. Carpets were to be found only
23:45
Speaker 1: in the houses of the very wealthy. The floors of
23:47
Speaker 1: ordinary houses, like those of churches, were covered with rushes
23:51
Speaker 1: and straw, among which it was the useful custom to
23:54
Speaker 1: scatter fragrant herbs. This rough carpet was pressed by the
23:58
Speaker 1: clogs of working people and the shoes of the fashionable.
24:02
Speaker 1: The spit was a much used cooking utensil. Table cloths, knives,
24:07
Speaker 1: and spoons were in general use, but not the fork.
24:10
Speaker 1: Before the fifteenth century. At one time food was manipulated
24:14
Speaker 1: by the fingers. York was advanced in table manners, for
24:17
Speaker 1: it is known that a fork was used in the
24:19
Speaker 1: house of a citizen family here in fourteen forty three.
24:23
Speaker 1: The richer members of the middle class owned a large
24:26
Speaker 1: number of silver tankards, goblets, mazer bowls, sort cellars, and
24:30
Speaker 1: similar utensils and ornaments of silver, for this was a
24:33
Speaker 1: common form in which they held their wealth. Beer, which
24:38
Speaker 1: was largely brewed at home, was the general beverage, but
24:41
Speaker 1: French and other wines were plentiful. The water supply came
24:44
Speaker 1: from wells, the water being drawn up by bucket and windless,
24:48
Speaker 1: or from the river when the wells were low. The
24:51
Speaker 1: drinking water of the twentieth century city is taken entirely
24:54
Speaker 1: from the river ooze, but now the water is carefully
24:57
Speaker 1: treated and purified before reaching the consumer. There were not
25:01
Speaker 1: many inns, as is shown in records by the number
25:04
Speaker 1: of inn holders who formed a trade company. There were
25:07
Speaker 1: also wine dealers. Typical insigns were the bull in Coney
25:11
Speaker 1: Street and the dragon. There is no reason to believe
25:14
Speaker 1: that in this century there was a really large amount
25:17
Speaker 1: of drinking and drunkenness, such as there was in the
25:19
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. An ordinance of the Marshals of fourteen o nine,
25:24
Speaker 1: no man of the craft shall go to inns, but
25:27
Speaker 1: if he is sent after under pain of fourpence may
25:30
Speaker 1: be quoted. The houses of the wealthy and the great
25:33
Speaker 1: lords were, of course the better furnished. They had walls
25:37
Speaker 1: adorned with tapestries and hung with arras or hangings. Occasionally
25:41
Speaker 1: their walls were paneled. Their furniture was rich, well constructed
25:45
Speaker 1: and carved by skilled craftsmen. Their mansions were large, for
25:49
Speaker 1: they had to house besides the owner's family and personal householders.
25:53
Speaker 1: Retainers and dependants attached to his service. In diverse capacities.
25:58
Speaker 1: Civic buildings insisted chiefly of the halls connected with the
26:02
Speaker 1: trade guilds. The rulers of the city and of the
26:05
Speaker 1: guilds were often the same men, in any case, usually
26:08
Speaker 1: men of the same set. These secular buildings were really
26:12
Speaker 1: distinguished in appearance, but not monumental. They reflected something of
26:16
Speaker 1: the wealth that accrued from trade. They were of good
26:19
Speaker 1: size and proportions, built to be worthy of the practical
26:22
Speaker 1: use for which they were intended. The lower stages were
26:25
Speaker 1: of stone, the upper, for the most part of wood
26:27
Speaker 1: and plaster half timbering. The structural framework was composed of
26:31
Speaker 1: stout beams and posts of timber. The timber roofs were
26:34
Speaker 1: covered with tiles. Examples may be seen in the Merchant's
26:38
Speaker 1: Hall Fossgate and Saint Antony's Hall in Peisholm Green. The
26:42
Speaker 1: wooden roof of the guild Hall, which was the common hall,
26:45
Speaker 1: erected in the fifteenth century, is supported by wooden columns.
26:49
Speaker 1: The walls of this hall and the entire basement are
26:52
Speaker 1: of stone. Of Davy Hall, the King's administrative offices and
26:57
Speaker 1: prison for the Royal Forest of galtries. Not a trace
27:00
Speaker 1: remains to show the kind of buildings they were. The
27:04
Speaker 1: fortifications consisted of the castle and the city walls with
27:07
Speaker 1: their gateways. The massive stone keep of the castle was
27:11
Speaker 1: on a high artificial mound at the city end of
27:13
Speaker 1: the enclosed area occupied by the castle. Around this mound
27:17
Speaker 1: there was a moat or deep broad ditch filled with water.
27:21
Speaker 1: The keep, which is in plan like a quadrifoil, consisted
27:24
Speaker 1: of two stories. Within near the entrance, there is a well,
27:28
Speaker 1: the memory of which is forever stained by the unhappy
27:31
Speaker 1: part it played in one of the most bitter persecutions
27:34
Speaker 1: of the Jews. Beyond the keep there were inner and
27:37
Speaker 1: outer wards official buildings, including the King's Great Hall, the
27:41
Speaker 1: Royal Mint, and barracks for the king's soldiers. The entire castle,
27:46
Speaker 1: which was the residence of the royal governor and a
27:48
Speaker 1: military depot, was surrounded by walls, outside which were moats
27:52
Speaker 1: or the river or swamps, according to the position of
27:55
Speaker 1: each side. These moats or defensive ditches were crossed by drawbridges.
28:00
Speaker 1: To enter a fortified place in the Middle Ages, one
28:03
Speaker 1: had to pass a barbican, that is an outwork consisting
28:06
Speaker 1: of a fortified wall along each side of the one way,
28:09
Speaker 1: a drawbridge across the moat, a portcullis or gate of
28:12
Speaker 1: stoutly intercrossing timbers set horizontally and vertically, with only a
28:16
Speaker 1: small space between any two beams, giving the whole gate
28:20
Speaker 1: the appearance of a large number of small square holes,
28:22
Speaker 1: each surrounded by solid wood that could be lowered or
28:26
Speaker 1: raised at will in grooves at the sides of the
28:28
Speaker 1: entrance opening. The ends of the vertical posts at the
28:31
Speaker 1: bottom formed a row of spikes, which were shod with iron.
28:35
Speaker 1: The points of these spikes entered the ground when the
28:37
Speaker 1: portcullis was lowered. Beyond there were the wooden gates of
28:40
Speaker 1: the inner opening. The city walls, of which the present
28:44
Speaker 1: remains date from the reign of Edward the Third, were broad,
28:48
Speaker 1: crenulated walls of limestone on a high mound, which was
28:51
Speaker 1: protected without by a parallel deep moat. At the north, east,
28:55
Speaker 1: south and west corners there were massive bastions, and between
28:59
Speaker 1: these at tu caught intervals smaller towers. Besides being crenelated,
29:03
Speaker 1: the raised front of the wall itself was often pierced
29:05
Speaker 1: with slits shaped for the use of long or crossbows.
29:09
Speaker 1: The bowmen were very well protected by these skillful arrangements.
29:13
Speaker 1: Some of these slits shaped like crosses, were of exquisite
29:16
Speaker 1: design Architecturally. The continuity of these mural fortifications was broken
29:22
Speaker 1: only where swamps and the rivers made them unnecessary, and
29:26
Speaker 1: where roads passed through them. The four principal entrances along
29:29
Speaker 1: the main high roads were defended by the four bars
29:32
Speaker 1: or fortified gateways. These with their barbicans, three of which
29:36
Speaker 1: were so needlessly and callously destroyed in the last century,
29:39
Speaker 1: were magnificent examples of noble permanent military architecture. The outer
29:44
Speaker 1: facade of Monk Bar to day, spoiled as it is,
29:48
Speaker 1: expresses a noble strength. There was formerly only the single
29:52
Speaker 1: way both for ingress and egress footnote. The view to
29:56
Speaker 1: day from Petergate towards Bootom Bar gives a good impression
30:00
Speaker 1: of a narrow main street with cabled houses leading to
30:03
Speaker 1: the single fortified opening provided by the bar end footnote.
30:08
Speaker 1: The bar was supported on each side by the mound
30:11
Speaker 1: and wall, which latter led right into the bar, and
30:14
Speaker 1: so to the corresponding wall on the other side. Each
30:17
Speaker 1: of these entrances to the city was protected by barbican
30:20
Speaker 1: portcullis and gate. Each evening the bars were closed and
30:24
Speaker 1: the city shut in for the night. Defenders used at
30:27
Speaker 1: a bar as a watch tower or a fort. They
30:30
Speaker 1: could walk along the high crenulated walls of the barbican
30:33
Speaker 1: and shoot, thence and stop the way by lowering the
30:36
Speaker 1: portcullis footnote. The winch and portcullis are still in existence
30:40
Speaker 1: in Monk Bar and in working order end footnote. Near
30:45
Speaker 1: the castle there were the castle mills, where the machinery
30:48
Speaker 1: was driven by water power. Outside the walls there were
30:51
Speaker 1: strays or common lands. Some of the land immediately around
30:55
Speaker 1: the city was cultivated or used as pasture. There were,
30:58
Speaker 1: besides dwellings, several churches and hospitals. Just outside the city.
31:03
Speaker 1: Beyond this suburban area was the forest. The most notable
31:08
Speaker 1: of the religious buildings is the Minster, which was practically
31:12
Speaker 1: completed in the fifteenth century, when the work of erecting
31:15
Speaker 1: the three towers was finished. The architectural splendor of this
31:18
Speaker 1: mighty church must have appealed very strongly to the people
31:21
Speaker 1: of the fifteenth century, For did they not see the
31:25
Speaker 1: great work that had gone on for centuries at last
31:28
Speaker 1: brought to this glorious conclusion. It rose up in the
31:31
Speaker 1: midst of the city, always visible from near and far.
31:34
Speaker 1: The inside was even more magnificent than the exterior. The
31:38
Speaker 1: fittings and furniture were of the richest. The light, mellow
31:41
Speaker 1: tone of the white stone work was enhanced by the
31:44
Speaker 1: fleeting visions of colour that spread across the sunlit stained
31:47
Speaker 1: glass windows, which still in spite of time and restoration,
31:51
Speaker 1: add enormously to the beauty of the interior. The Minster
31:55
Speaker 1: stood within its close one of the four gateways of
31:58
Speaker 1: which College Street arch. This part of the city around
32:02
Speaker 1: the Minster was enclosed because it was under the jurisdiction
32:05
Speaker 1: of the Liberty of Saint Peter. Originally founded in six
32:08
Speaker 1: hundred twenty seven by Edwin, King of Northumbria, the Minster
32:12
Speaker 1: had been rebuilt and enlarged from time to time. It
32:15
Speaker 1: received its final and present form in the fifteenth century.
32:18
Speaker 1: At one time, the nave was rebuilt. At the same
32:21
Speaker 1: time there was built, near but separate from the main building,
32:24
Speaker 1: the Chapter House, a magnificent octagonal parliament house of one
32:28
Speaker 1: immense chamber. Later the chapter House was connected with the
32:31
Speaker 1: main building by the vestibule. Then the choir was replaced
32:35
Speaker 1: by a larger and finer building in the then latest
32:38
Speaker 1: architectural fashion. The new choir contained the east window, which
32:42
Speaker 1: in the eyes of contemporaries, was wonderful and unrivaled for
32:45
Speaker 1: its size and painted glass. It occupies nearly all the
32:49
Speaker 1: central space of the east wall, from a few feet
32:51
Speaker 1: above the ground to almost the apex of the gable.
32:55
Speaker 1: Gothic architecture was so marvelously adaptable that all these parts,
32:59
Speaker 1: built at widely different times, at various and strongly contrasted
33:03
Speaker 1: stages of the development of this English medieval architecture, together
33:08
Speaker 1: make a single building that appears to possess the most
33:11
Speaker 1: felicitous unity of general design and a perfectly wonderful diversity
33:15
Speaker 1: of sectional design, for every part is in complete sympathy
33:19
Speaker 1: with the scheme as a whole. To the east of
33:22
Speaker 1: the central tower is the choir, which was kept exclusively
33:25
Speaker 1: for the services. To the west, the nave, the popular part.
33:30
Speaker 1: The entrance to the choir from the west is made
33:32
Speaker 1: through the stone screen of kings, which, with the lofty
33:35
Speaker 1: organ which rests on it, prevents people in the nave
33:38
Speaker 1: from getting anything more than a glimpse of what is
33:40
Speaker 1: taking place in the choir. Over the western ends of
33:44
Speaker 1: the nave aisles are the twin west towers, which contain
33:47
Speaker 1: the bells. The high altar and reredos stood in the
33:50
Speaker 1: middle of the choir, between the two choir transepts, the
33:53
Speaker 1: huge windows of which present in picture the life stories
33:57
Speaker 1: of Saint Cuthbert and Saint William, respectively. The lady chapel,
34:01
Speaker 1: the part of the choir to the east of the reredos,
34:03
Speaker 1: was very important in pre Reformation days when the cult
34:07
Speaker 1: of the Virgin was very popular. To the north and
34:10
Speaker 1: south of the central tower are the transepts. From the
34:13
Speaker 1: north transept, the vestibule leads to the chapter house. The
34:16
Speaker 1: church is therefore of the shape of a cross, the
34:19
Speaker 1: center of which is marked by the central tower, with
34:22
Speaker 1: an octagonal building standing near and connected with the northern arm.
34:28
Speaker 1: The furniture was of wood and elaborately carved in the choir,
34:31
Speaker 1: with the fixed stalls with towering canopies and other seats,
34:35
Speaker 1: which were ranged along the north and south sides, and
34:38
Speaker 1: at the west end. Chapels were marked off by wooden screens,
34:41
Speaker 1: often of elaborate tracery. The cost of erecting this huge
34:46
Speaker 1: and splendid church must have been enormous. The Minster contained
34:50
Speaker 1: the shrine of Saint William of York, which, like those
34:53
Speaker 1: of Saint Cuthbert at Durham and Saint Thomas at Canterbury,
34:57
Speaker 1: of European fame, attracted streams of pilgrims, whose donations helped
35:01
Speaker 1: the funds of erection and maintenance. This was an established
35:04
Speaker 1: means of raising funds for church purposes. There was also
35:08
Speaker 1: the money from penances and indulgences. The archbishops were keenly
35:12
Speaker 1: interested in their cathedral. Church citizens gave and bequeathed sums
35:16
Speaker 1: of money to the Minster funds. In addition, the Minster
35:19
Speaker 1: authorities received gifts from wealthy nobles of the North of England.
35:23
Speaker 1: The House of Vavassur, for instance, supplied stone. That of
35:28
Speaker 1: Percy gave wood to be used in building the Great
35:31
Speaker 1: Metropolitical Church. If the money cost was enormous, the completed building,
35:36
Speaker 1: for design, engineering and decorative work in stone, wood, cloth,
35:41
Speaker 1: stained glass was far beyond monetary value. The nave, the
35:46
Speaker 1: part open to the public, was used for processions. Some
35:50
Speaker 1: started from the great west door entrance, through which was
35:53
Speaker 1: a rare privilege granted only to the heighst The choir
35:56
Speaker 1: was the scene of the daily services of the seven
35:59
Speaker 1: offices of the day. All around in the aisles and
36:02
Speaker 1: transepts were altars, in side chapels chantry chapels, where throughout
36:07
Speaker 1: the early part of the day priests were saying masses
36:09
Speaker 1: for the souls of the departed. There were thirty chantries
36:13
Speaker 1: in the Minster footnote. The Leschman chantry chapel in Hexham
36:17
Speaker 1: Abbey is a typical example in excellent preservation. A small
36:21
Speaker 1: erection of stone and wood. It stands between two of
36:24
Speaker 1: the piers of the north choir arcade. In small compass.
36:28
Speaker 1: There are a stone altar with five crosses, an ormbury
36:31
Speaker 1: beneath the altar, and the tomb with recumbent effigy of
36:34
Speaker 1: the founder. A priest would have just sufficient room to
36:37
Speaker 1: move about in the performance of his service. Part of
36:40
Speaker 1: Archbishop Bowitt's tomb in York Minster was a chantry chapel
36:45
Speaker 1: end footnote. The Minster has from its foundation been a cathedral.
36:50
Speaker 1: The Chapter of Canons, with the Dean at their head,
36:52
Speaker 1: has always been its governing body. As the church, it
36:55
Speaker 1: was served by prebendaries or cannons, who had definite periods
36:58
Speaker 1: of duty annually and two residential bodies of priests, of
37:02
Speaker 1: whom some the chantry priests lived at Saint William's College.
37:06
Speaker 1: This college was erected shortly after the middle of the
37:08
Speaker 1: fifteenth century on the site there had been Sultan House,
37:12
Speaker 1: the prebendal residence of the Prior of Hexham, who was
37:15
Speaker 1: Canon of Sultan. This picturesque building of stone wood, half
37:19
Speaker 1: timber work and tiled roofs is a little to the
37:22
Speaker 1: east of the Minster. It consists of a series of
37:24
Speaker 1: rooms ranged round a central courtyard. It is of much
37:28
Speaker 1: historical interest, and since it was restored recently to be
37:31
Speaker 1: the home of the Convocation of the Northern Province, it
37:34
Speaker 1: has returned to the service of the church. The minor
37:37
Speaker 1: canons or vickers quarrel, who were employed by the Cannons
37:40
Speaker 1: as their deputies, also lived in community. They had their hall,
37:44
Speaker 1: chapel and other buildings in an enclosed part called the Bedun,
37:48
Speaker 1: not far from the Minster. As a counterpart to the
37:52
Speaker 1: Minster in appearance as in use was the great rich
37:55
Speaker 1: Benedictine Abbey of Saint Mary, of royal foundation with a
37:59
Speaker 1: miterd abber who sat among the lords spiritual in parliament.
38:03
Speaker 1: Saint Mary's was perhaps the most important of the northern monasteries.
38:07
Speaker 1: The buildings were proportionally large and fine. The church, dating
38:11
Speaker 1: mostly from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was particularly long
38:14
Speaker 1: and had a tall spire. It was only a little
38:17
Speaker 1: inferior to the Minster in magnificence. On the south side
38:20
Speaker 1: were the cloisters, the open air workplace and recreation place
38:24
Speaker 1: of the monks, while beyond were the conventual buildings such
38:28
Speaker 1: as the califactory or warming house, the dormitories, and the
38:31
Speaker 1: refectory or room where meals were taken. The cloisters were
38:35
Speaker 1: square in plan and consisted of a central grass plot
38:39
Speaker 1: along the sides of which there was a continuous covered
38:41
Speaker 1: walk with unglazed windows facing the central open space. Benedictine
38:46
Speaker 1: abbeys usually conformed to a common scheme as regards the
38:50
Speaker 1: planning of the church and the conventual buildings. The cloisters
38:53
Speaker 1: were only one of the courts or open squares, which
38:56
Speaker 1: separated groups of conventual buildings. Further there were gardens and orchards.
39:01
Speaker 1: Nearer the river there was the hospitium or guest house,
39:04
Speaker 1: where visitors were lodged. The abbey was within its own walls,
39:08
Speaker 1: and on one side its grounds extended to the river.
39:12
Speaker 1: The Gateway comprising Gate Lodge and chapel was on the
39:15
Speaker 1: north side. Near the castle, there was an extensive Franciscan friary.
39:21
Speaker 1: On the other side of the river, there was the
39:22
Speaker 1: Priory of the Holy Trinity, the home of an alien
39:25
Speaker 1: Benedictine order. A Carmelite friary in Hungate opposite the castle,
39:30
Speaker 1: seems from the few odd fragments of stone that remain
39:33
Speaker 1: to have had fine buildings. The Augustinian Friary was between
39:38
Speaker 1: Lendal and the river. The Dominican House, which was burnt
39:41
Speaker 1: down in fourteen fifty five, was on the site of
39:44
Speaker 1: the old railway station. The only nunnery in the city
39:47
Speaker 1: was the Benedictine Priory of Saint Clement. There were sisterhoods
39:50
Speaker 1: in Saint Leonards and other hospitals. It should, however, be
39:54
Speaker 1: noted there were many nunneries in the districts round York.
39:58
Speaker 1: Some of the religious institution were called hospitals. The care
40:01
Speaker 1: of the sick was only one of the functions of
40:04
Speaker 1: this type of religious house. Such was the large and
40:06
Speaker 1: famous Saint Leonard's Hospital, a royal institution that was not
40:10
Speaker 1: under the control of a bishop. The beautiful ruins of
40:13
Speaker 1: Saint Leonard's, which adjoined Saint Mary's Abbey, prove how well
40:17
Speaker 1: this hospital had been built. These hospitals, of which there
40:20
Speaker 1: were fifteen in York, were in close touch with the people.
40:24
Speaker 1: While Saint Mary's, for instance, was one of the great
40:27
Speaker 1: abbeys where the monks by the time when the fifteenth
40:30
Speaker 1: century was advanced were living luxuriously, easily and generally unproductively,
40:35
Speaker 1: the religious of the hospitals and lesser houses were still
40:38
Speaker 1: engaged in feeding the poor, tending the sick, and educating
40:42
Speaker 1: the children of the people. Each of these religious institutions,
40:46
Speaker 1: whether monastery or hospital, was within its own grounds, bounded
40:50
Speaker 1: by its own walls. Altogether, they occupied a large part
40:53
Speaker 1: of the total area of the medieval city, which their
40:56
Speaker 1: buildings adorned, and of which they were so characteristic a feature.
41:00
Speaker 1: Saint Mary's Abbey, which with its buildings and grounds covered
41:03
Speaker 1: a large area, was actually outside the city proper, but
41:06
Speaker 1: it was immediately adjoining it. There were nearly sixty monasteries, priories, hospitals,
41:12
Speaker 1: Maisondieu and chapels the Maisondieu, of which there were sixteen
41:16
Speaker 1: were smaller hospitals. They combined generally the duties of almshouse
41:20
Speaker 1: and chantry. Parish churches, which were the centers of the
41:25
Speaker 1: religious life of the laity, were everywhere. In the fifteenth century,
41:28
Speaker 1: there were forty five churches and ten chapels, so that
41:32
Speaker 1: there was always a place in church for every citizen.
41:35
Speaker 1: A church was always in use. Besides the regular public services,
41:39
Speaker 1: which took place frequently during the day, and the special
41:42
Speaker 1: services for festivals, there were services in chantries. Both the
41:45
Speaker 1: high altar in the chancel and altars in other parts
41:48
Speaker 1: of a church were used. Several altars were necessary because
41:52
Speaker 1: the number of masses for the celebration of which money
41:54
Speaker 1: was liberally bequeathed was very large. The parish church was
41:58
Speaker 1: used for other than purely religious purposes. It was the
42:02
Speaker 1: central meeting place of the parish and might be described
42:05
Speaker 1: as the seat of parochial government. Meetings were held in
42:08
Speaker 1: the nave. Parts of the church were used as schools.
42:11
Speaker 1: The parish church was also the depot for the equipment
42:14
Speaker 1: of those members who became soldiers. Moreover, fire buckets, generally
42:18
Speaker 1: of leather, were often kept in the church, since being
42:21
Speaker 1: of stone, it was perhaps the safest building in the parish.
42:24
Speaker 1: There were also long poles with hooks at the end
42:26
Speaker 1: used to pull thatch away from burning houses. Most, if
42:31
Speaker 1: not all, of these churches were fine specimens of the
42:33
Speaker 1: architecture of the Middle Ages, the so called Gothic architecture,
42:37
Speaker 1: which is characterized by pointed arches, ribbed vaulting, and the
42:41
Speaker 1: constant use of the buttress. These churches were in contrast
42:45
Speaker 1: to the present condition of most of those that remain
42:48
Speaker 1: complete with chancel, knave and aisles, towers or spires, bells,
42:53
Speaker 1: stained glass windows and furniture, many of them being particularly
42:57
Speaker 1: rich in one or more of these features. The painted
42:59
Speaker 1: wind windows are especially interesting for they showed the standard
43:03
Speaker 1: of this branch of fifteenth century art and are valuable
43:06
Speaker 1: historical documents. The rich, mellow tones of color should be
43:09
Speaker 1: noted also the incidental pictures of medieval dress and furniture footnote.
43:15
Speaker 1: Besides the exceptional display of fifteenth century glass in the Minster,
43:19
Speaker 1: notable examples occur in Saint Martin's Coney Street, All Saints
43:23
Speaker 1: North Street and Holy Trinity good Rung Gate end footnote.
43:29
Speaker 1: It is interesting to compare the fifteenth century work with
43:31
Speaker 1: that done, for instance, by the William Morris Firm to
43:34
Speaker 1: the designs of Burne Jones eighteen thirty three to eighteen
43:37
Speaker 1: ninety eight. At a time when the revived art with
43:40
Speaker 1: other forms of decoration, was enjoying a period of great
43:43
Speaker 1: success in the fifteenth century, the church was flourishing materially
43:48
Speaker 1: at least, and money and gifts were freely given. The
43:52
Speaker 1: offices and services in churches were recited and sung. Organs
43:56
Speaker 1: were used, but were not very large and were capable
44:00
Speaker 1: are being carried about. Although working on similar principles to
44:03
Speaker 1: the modern organ, they lacked its size, power and varied capacity.
44:07
Speaker 1: At the Minster there were several organs, for instance, the
44:10
Speaker 1: great organs, the organs in the choir, the organs at
44:14
Speaker 1: the altar BVM. The chancel was the most sacred part
44:18
Speaker 1: of the church, for there was the principal or high
44:22
Speaker 1: altar in the chancel where the stalls or seats of
44:25
Speaker 1: the clergy and officials. The actual seats could be turned
44:28
Speaker 1: up when the occupants wished to stand standing for long periods.
44:32
Speaker 1: Was made less irksome in that the underside of each
44:35
Speaker 1: seat was made with a projecting ledge which gave some support.
44:38
Speaker 1: It is thoroughly characteristic of the age that this very
44:42
Speaker 1: human device should have existed, and secondly that these ledges
44:46
Speaker 1: were carved and ornamented. These miserichords, as they are called,
44:50
Speaker 1: were usually curiously, even grotesquely carved. Some of these carvings
44:55
Speaker 1: were founded on natural objects, some were grotesque heads, others
44:59
Speaker 1: represent did subjects with man and animals. There were pews
45:03
Speaker 1: for the nobility, but apart from the few old and
45:06
Speaker 1: weak people who used the rough bench or two in
45:08
Speaker 1: the body of the church, or the stone bench that
45:10
Speaker 1: run along the walls, the general public stood during the services.
45:15
Speaker 1: Wealthy parishioners left money to the parochial clergy and for
45:18
Speaker 1: the fabric of the church. They generally wished to be
45:21
Speaker 1: buried at some particular place within their parish church. Such
45:25
Speaker 1: distinguished men as Nicholas Blackburn, merchant of York, were commemorated
45:29
Speaker 1: at times in their parish churches by means of stained
45:32
Speaker 1: glass windows. The portraits of Nicholas and his son and
45:35
Speaker 1: their wives appear in the east windows of All Saints
45:38
Speaker 1: North Street. His arms are also to be seen in
45:41
Speaker 1: this window. D York as a port the ouse was
45:47
Speaker 1: tidal and navigable right up to York trade, especially in
45:51
Speaker 1: woolen goods was carried on in the fifteenth century by
45:54
Speaker 1: river and sea directly between York and ports on the
45:57
Speaker 1: west coasts of the continent and especially Baltic ports. On
46:01
Speaker 1: arriving at York, the boats stopped at the keys adjacent
46:04
Speaker 1: to which were warehouses just below Ooze Bridge. The sea
46:07
Speaker 1: going boats were not large. They were usually one masted
46:10
Speaker 1: sailing ships built of wood. They had high prows and
46:13
Speaker 1: sterns with a capacious hold between. Some of them were
46:17
Speaker 1: built in York. Their trade was such that some of
46:20
Speaker 1: the York merchants, for example, the wealthy Halm family, had
46:24
Speaker 1: establishments in foreign ports. The Helms had property in Calais.
46:29
Speaker 1: The regulation of the waterways in and near the city
46:32
Speaker 1: was vested in the corporation. Matters pertaining to navigation and
46:36
Speaker 1: shipping were adjudged by an admiralty court under the King's Admiral,
46:40
Speaker 1: whose jurisdiction extended from the Thames to the northern ports.
46:45
Speaker 1: End of chapter three the first section of chapter four
47:00
Speaker 1: of Life in a Medieval City. This LibriVox recording is
47:04
Speaker 1: in the public domain. Recording by Peter Yearsley Life in
47:08
Speaker 1: a Medieval City illustrated by York in the fifteenth century
47:13
Speaker 1: by Edwin Benson. The first section of chapter four Life
47:20
Speaker 1: a Civic life. Parish government formed the unit in the
47:24
Speaker 1: government of the city. Each parish was a self governing community,
47:29
Speaker 1: electing its own officers with the exception of its rector,
47:32
Speaker 1: making its own by laws, and to meet expenses, levying
47:36
Speaker 1: and collecting its own rates. Its constables served as policemen,
47:41
Speaker 1: attended the sessions and acted as the fire brigade. They
47:44
Speaker 1: looked after the parish. Trained soldiers acted as recruiters and
47:49
Speaker 1: had the care of the parish armor, which was kept
47:51
Speaker 1: in a chest in the church. They distributed money among
47:55
Speaker 1: lame soldiers, gathered trophy money, relieved cripples and passengers, but
48:00
Speaker 1: unfeelingly conveyed beggars and vagabonds to prison. The parish soldiers
48:06
Speaker 1: kept watch and ward over the parish defenses. The parish
48:09
Speaker 1: stocks in which offenders were placed, stood near the churchyard style.
48:14
Speaker 1: The constables were also responsible for such lighting as the
48:17
Speaker 1: parish required, and kept the parish landthorn. The officials looked
48:22
Speaker 1: after the parish poor, dispensing charity by gifts of bread
48:26
Speaker 1: and money. The parish boundaries were perambulated every accension day
48:30
Speaker 1: parish dinners were held on the choosing of the church wardens,
48:33
Speaker 1: the visitation of the archdeacon, et cetera. The parish officials
48:37
Speaker 1: invoked the aid of the law when parochial rights were infringed,
48:41
Speaker 1: especially by neighbors. The church was the center of parochial life,
48:45
Speaker 1: and in it the business of the parish was transacted.
48:49
Speaker 1: Parishes were grouped as wards. The wards chose city councilors,
48:54
Speaker 1: and these elected their aldermen. The sixth wards formed the municipality,
48:59
Speaker 1: over which presided with the mayor. The Corporation exercised a
49:03
Speaker 1: general supervision over the whole of the parishes, of which
49:07
Speaker 1: there were forty five. Gradually, the duties and powers of
49:11
Speaker 1: the various parish officials have been transferred to the City Council.
49:15
Speaker 1: The United Parish Soldiers became the City trained bands. In
49:20
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred, the last remnant of parochial officialdom passed into
49:24
Speaker 1: the power of the Corporation when parish overseers ceased to
49:28
Speaker 1: exist and for rating purposes, the City of York became
49:32
Speaker 1: one parish instead of the original forty five separately rated areas. Footnote.
49:39
Speaker 1: The preceding information is from Parish of Holy Trinity, Goodromgate,
49:44
Speaker 1: York by G. Benson end footnote. The Cathedral i e.
49:50
Speaker 1: The Liberty of Saint Peter, and the royal castle were
49:54
Speaker 1: outside municipal control. The archbishops also had their privileges. They
49:59
Speaker 1: had once owned all the city on the right bank
50:02
Speaker 1: of the Ousee. In the fifteenth century, they still retained
50:05
Speaker 1: many of their privileges and possessions in this quarter, as
50:08
Speaker 1: for example, the right of holding a fair here in
50:11
Speaker 1: what was formerly their shire. These arche episcopal rights have
50:16
Speaker 1: not all lapsed, for in eighteen o seven the archbishop
50:19
Speaker 1: of the time, successfully asserting his legal rights, saved from demolition.
50:24
Speaker 1: The city walls on the west side of the River
50:27
Speaker 1: York was a royal borough. That is, the freemen of
50:31
Speaker 1: the city had to pay rent to the King, from
50:33
Speaker 1: whom it was farmed directly. It was not owned by
50:36
Speaker 1: any knight or lord. That is, apart from the archbishop's possessions,
50:41
Speaker 1: which belonged to the western section of the city, the
50:44
Speaker 1: city proper was almost entirely on the opposite side of
50:47
Speaker 1: the river. The king retained possession of certain properties, such
50:51
Speaker 1: as Galtre's Forest, lying in the valley stretching northwards from York.
50:55
Speaker 1: He had a larder and a fish pond. At York
50:58
Speaker 1: also a court offices and a prison davy hall, of
51:02
Speaker 1: which the name alone remains, for the administration of the forest.
51:07
Speaker 1: These town properties were, of course, entirely extra parochial. York
51:12
Speaker 1: received a long succession of royal charters. Henry the First
51:16
Speaker 1: granted the city certain customs, laws and liberties, and the
51:20
Speaker 1: right to have a merchant guild. The possessions of these
51:23
Speaker 1: rights was confirmed by King John in the first year
51:26
Speaker 1: of his reign. In thirteen ninety six, Richard the Second
51:30
Speaker 1: at York made the city a county in itself. In consequence,
51:35
Speaker 1: the office of bailiff was replaced by that of sheriff.
51:39
Speaker 1: The king's official representative in the city was called the sheriff,
51:43
Speaker 1: whose office in York has been continuous down to the
51:46
Speaker 1: present day. The sheriffs, there were usually two, were responsible
51:50
Speaker 1: for the maintenance of order for the local soldiery and
51:54
Speaker 1: the collection of the royal taxes and dews. The sheriff
51:58
Speaker 1: was a busy and important medieval official. The mayor was
52:02
Speaker 1: the real governor of the city. He was a powerful
52:05
Speaker 1: official and literally ruler of the city. In practice, he
52:09
Speaker 1: was most often a wealthy and important merchant, and like
52:13
Speaker 1: the aldermen, belonged to the group of men who governed
52:16
Speaker 1: the trade guilds as well as the municipality. Various symbols
52:21
Speaker 1: were attached to his office. The chief objects among the
52:24
Speaker 1: corporation regalia at the present time are the sword, mace
52:28
Speaker 1: and cap of maintenance. There were three city councils, the twelve,
52:34
Speaker 1: the twenty four and the forty eight, as they were called.
52:38
Speaker 1: There were the aldermen and councilors, the lords and commons
52:42
Speaker 1: of the municipal parliament. The ordinary council chamber was at
52:46
Speaker 1: ouse Bridge. The other was the common Hall the present
52:49
Speaker 1: guild Hall. Sometimes the whole community of citizens met when
52:53
Speaker 1: for the moment the government of the city became essentially
52:56
Speaker 1: and practically democratic. This was only dye on important occasions
53:01
Speaker 1: to decide broad questions of policy, or when numbers were
53:05
Speaker 1: needed to enforce the decision. The commons really possessed no
53:09
Speaker 1: administrative power. The form of civic government was supposed to
53:13
Speaker 1: be representative, but as a matter of fact it was
53:16
Speaker 1: not only not founded on a popular election, a procedure
53:20
Speaker 1: enforced in eighteen thirty five by the municipal Reform Act,
53:24
Speaker 1: but was kept exclusively in the hands of the wealthy,
53:27
Speaker 1: merchant and trading class. The middle class. Men of this
53:31
Speaker 1: class became aldermen. When a vacancy occurred in the upper
53:34
Speaker 1: house of civic government, they chose a man like themselves.
53:38
Speaker 1: The mayor was elected by the aldermen, who naturally chose
53:41
Speaker 1: one of themselves. In fact, the government of the city
53:45
Speaker 1: was in the hold of a close self elected corporation.
53:50
Speaker 1: The civic spirit developed a good deal during the fifteenth century,
53:54
Speaker 1: no doubt, in connection with the simultaneous increase in the
53:57
Speaker 1: wealth and social pretension of the rising merchant middle class.
54:02
Speaker 1: It appeared in the greater respect bestowed on the office
54:05
Speaker 1: of mayor and the pomp and reverence attached to his position.
54:10
Speaker 1: The right worshipful the mayor and the aldermen wore rich
54:15
Speaker 1: state robes edged with fur. In addition, contemporary city records
54:19
Speaker 1: reflect the new spirit in such expressions as the worshipful city,
54:24
Speaker 1: the said full honorable city, this full noble city. This spirit, however,
54:30
Speaker 1: developed more fully in the sixteenth century. The mayor held
54:34
Speaker 1: his court in the common hall, where he heard please
54:37
Speaker 1: about apprentices and mysteries. By the rules of the crafts,
54:42
Speaker 1: offenses against the customs of the city, breaches of the
54:45
Speaker 1: King's peace. It was his duty to administer the statute merchant.
54:50
Speaker 1: The recorder was the official civic lawyer. The governors of
54:54
Speaker 1: the city were intimately connected with the control of trade
54:57
Speaker 1: and the rule of the pageants. Phases of city life
55:01
Speaker 1: overlapped considerably and were interdependent. Weaving was the principal trade.
55:06
Speaker 1: The mayor and aldermen were the masters of the mysteries
55:09
Speaker 1: of the weavers. Power to enforce the ordinances of the
55:12
Speaker 1: other mysteries was granted by the mayor and corporation. There
55:16
Speaker 1: were times when the king took the government into his
55:19
Speaker 1: own hands. This was done during the rebellion of the Percies,
55:23
Speaker 1: a northern family skilled and experienced in the rebellion. Henry
55:27
Speaker 1: the Fourth withdrew the right of government from the city
55:30
Speaker 1: in fourteen o five, but he restored it in fourteen
55:33
Speaker 1: o six after the execution of Archbishop's Scrope, who had
55:36
Speaker 1: been so popular with the people of York. Of medieval punishments,
55:41
Speaker 1: the most obvious were the stocks, a contemporary picture of
55:44
Speaker 1: which is to be seen in one of the stained
55:46
Speaker 1: glass windows of All Saints North Street examples of stocks
55:50
Speaker 1: survive in the churchyards of Holy Trinity, Micklegate and Saint Lawrence's.
55:55
Speaker 1: They were near the entrance to the churchyard and commanded
55:59
Speaker 1: full public attention. The petty offender, condemned to spend so
56:03
Speaker 1: many hours in the public gaze and subject to whatever
56:07
Speaker 1: treatment the public chose to inflict on him, sat on
56:10
Speaker 1: the ground or on a low seat, while his feet
56:12
Speaker 1: were secured at the ankles by two vertical boards. The
56:16
Speaker 1: upper was raised for the insertion of the ankles in
56:18
Speaker 1: the specially cut out half round holes in each board,
56:21
Speaker 1: so that when the boards were touching and in the
56:24
Speaker 1: same vertical plane, the ankles were completely surrounded by wood.
56:28
Speaker 1: To its political importance, York owed the ghastly exhibition of
56:33
Speaker 1: heads and odd quarters of traitors and others who had
56:37
Speaker 1: gained punishment of national importance, which usually consisted of hanging, drawing,
56:42
Speaker 1: and quartering. When the quarters and the head were sent
56:46
Speaker 1: to London and the principal towns of the Kingdom to
56:49
Speaker 1: be exhibited on gateways, towers and bridges. This practice served
56:53
Speaker 1: to provide the public with convincing proof that a traitor
56:57
Speaker 1: was actually dead, and was very necessary in an age
57:00
Speaker 1: when rumor, stuffing the ears of men with false reports
57:05
Speaker 1: held sway over the blunt monster with uncounted heads. The
57:09
Speaker 1: still discordant, wavering multitude nickelgate bar was so used in
57:15
Speaker 1: Shakespeare's Henry the sixth Queen Margaret makes with reference to
57:20
Speaker 1: the Duke of York this bitter play of words, off
57:24
Speaker 1: with his head and set it on York Gates, so
57:27
Speaker 1: York may overlook the town of York. One very interesting
57:33
Speaker 1: practice in connection with the medieval system of law and
57:36
Speaker 1: policing was the use of the right of sanctuary. The monasteries,
57:40
Speaker 1: the Minster and all churches had this right of giving
57:44
Speaker 1: a sacrisanct safety to criminals and others flying from their pursuers,
57:48
Speaker 1: whether officers of the law or the general mob. Whose
57:52
Speaker 1: right be it noted it was to join in the
57:54
Speaker 1: chase after offenders the hue and cry and help to
57:58
Speaker 1: arrest them. Guided the pursued reached the prescribed area, which
58:03
Speaker 1: in some cases, as at the nationally famous sanctuary of
58:06
Speaker 1: Saint John of Beverly, prevailed for some distance from the
58:09
Speaker 1: church itself, he was safe from his pursuers. Hexham Abbey
58:14
Speaker 1: and Beverley Minster still exhibit their sanctuary chairs. Or frith stools.
58:19
Speaker 1: In the north door of Durham Cathedral there is an
58:22
Speaker 1: ancient massive knocker, the wrapper of the form of a
58:26
Speaker 1: ring being held in the mouth of a grotesque head.
58:29
Speaker 1: The frith stool to which the seeker went at once
58:32
Speaker 1: stood near the high altar at which he made his
58:35
Speaker 1: declarations on oath. His case was carefully investigated, and often
58:40
Speaker 1: sanctuary seekers were allowed to exile themselves from the kingdom.
58:44
Speaker 1: The coroner was the public officer of inquiry. The Church
58:47
Speaker 1: took every care that the crime of breaking the sanctuary
58:51
Speaker 1: so granted was regarded not at all lightly. The right
58:55
Speaker 1: of sanctuary, after being changed to apply to certain towns
58:59
Speaker 1: only among them York, continued till it was ended by
59:03
Speaker 1: law in the reign of James. The first condemned heretics
59:07
Speaker 1: were burnt at Tyburn, the site of local executions, some
59:11
Speaker 1: way from Micklegate Bar along the main south road footnote
59:16
Speaker 1: de heretico comburrendo fourteen o one. In fifteen thirty nine,
59:21
Speaker 1: Valentine Freeze, a freeman, and his wife were burnt at
59:25
Speaker 1: the stake on Knavesmire for heresy. Frederick Freeze, Valentine's father,
59:30
Speaker 1: was a book printer, and a freeman in fourteen ninety
59:34
Speaker 1: seven end Footnote B Parliamentary and national life. According to
59:40
Speaker 1: the general principle, the king was the ultimate and absolute
59:44
Speaker 1: owner and ruler of the land and people. The rights, liberties, customs,
59:49
Speaker 1: and powers possessed by individuals and corporate bodies were specified
59:53
Speaker 1: parts of the royal power which the King had granted
59:56
Speaker 1: on some consideration or other. Thus, knights, archbishops, and nobles
1:00:01
Speaker 1: received lands and rights in return for the provision, when required,
1:00:06
Speaker 1: of military service by themselves and a certain force of
1:00:09
Speaker 1: their retainers, except that no personal military service was required
1:00:14
Speaker 1: from the archbishop from the very nature of his calling.
1:00:17
Speaker 1: The monasteries and other church institutions had many possessions and rights.
1:00:22
Speaker 1: The Church, which was established in the realm before parliament,
1:00:25
Speaker 1: was a very great owner of land. The authorities of cities,
1:00:30
Speaker 1: with their trade guilds, received the right of trading or
1:00:33
Speaker 1: holding markets, and of levying tolls or municipal taxes. They
1:00:38
Speaker 1: received also the right of making their own laws or
1:00:40
Speaker 1: by laws. These authorities, whether individuals or corporate bodies, to
1:00:45
Speaker 1: whom rights and liberties were granted, had their own officers
1:00:49
Speaker 1: and laws controlling their liberties. Besides the King's peace. There
1:00:53
Speaker 1: were therefore the jurisdictions of these various rights granted from
1:00:57
Speaker 1: the supreme royal authority. From York there went to the
1:01:01
Speaker 1: National Parliament, the Lord Archbishop of York, the Lord Abbot
1:01:05
Speaker 1: of Saint Mary's Abbey, those nobles who resided in the
1:01:08
Speaker 1: city and were lords temporal, and the two representatives of
1:01:12
Speaker 1: the Commonalty of the city. The body of Lords spiritual
1:01:16
Speaker 1: was of great importance in the Middle Ages. The convocation
1:01:20
Speaker 1: of the lords of the Church had itself a share
1:01:23
Speaker 1: in the governing of the nation, as well as of
1:01:25
Speaker 1: the Church its own particular sphere. The Church was one
1:01:29
Speaker 1: of the most powerful and richest factors in national affairs.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: The clear division of the parliament of the Middle Ages
1:01:36
Speaker 1: into three groups reflects the sharp divisions that there were
1:01:40
Speaker 1: between the three great classes of the nation, the nobles,
1:01:44
Speaker 1: the clergy, the people. In the fifteenth century, as in
1:01:49
Speaker 1: other centuries, York was frequently visited by the king from
1:01:53
Speaker 1: time to time, as when the King and court proceeded north.
1:01:56
Speaker 1: During the wars with Scotland, Parliament was moved to York,
1:02:00
Speaker 1: where it was held in the Chapter House of the Minster.
1:02:03
Speaker 1: Six of the seven windows of the Chapter House contain
1:02:06
Speaker 1: their original stained glass, in which appear shields of King
1:02:09
Speaker 1: Edward the First and members of the court. The Chapter
1:02:13
Speaker 1: House was used as a parliament house during the reigns
1:02:16
Speaker 1: of the first three Edwards. The King in medieval times
1:02:20
Speaker 1: was actual commander in chief, and it suited him well
1:02:23
Speaker 1: for Parliament to meet in the political capital of the North,
1:02:27
Speaker 1: so that he could continue the civil administration while conducting
1:02:31
Speaker 1: warfare in the North. Henry the Fourth was in York
1:02:34
Speaker 1: on several occasions, chiefly because of rebellions the House of Percy,
1:02:39
Speaker 1: which engaged frequently in Revoltant faction led the rebellion of
1:02:43
Speaker 1: fourteen o three, in which Henry Percy, called Hotspur, was
1:02:47
Speaker 1: killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Harry Hotspur, whom Shakespeare made,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: in accordance with tradition, the fiery and valorous counterpart of
1:02:56
Speaker 1: Prince Hal Henry the Fourth's heir and Falstaff's compared union,
1:03:00
Speaker 1: was buried in the Minster. When Archbishop's Scrope headed a
1:03:04
Speaker 1: revolt also not unconnected with the Percies, from York and
1:03:09
Speaker 1: was arrested. Henry the Fourth hastened to York, and the
1:03:12
Speaker 1: popular archbishop was executed forthwith a royal and sacrilegious deed
1:03:17
Speaker 1: that caused intense indignation, especially among the people of York,
1:03:21
Speaker 1: who for some months lost the right of local government
1:03:24
Speaker 1: as a result of this affair. The Wars of the
1:03:28
Speaker 1: Roses fourteen fifty five to fourteen eighty five, a long
1:03:32
Speaker 1: internisigan feud between kings, lords and landed gentry, affected the
1:03:37
Speaker 1: towns but little. The baronage suffered heavily, the middle class lightly.
1:03:43
Speaker 1: No town ever stood a siege. While Tauton was the
1:03:46
Speaker 1: only battle in which the common soldiers had heavy losses,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: Warwick made it a practice to spare the commoners, whereby
1:03:53
Speaker 1: he conciliated the people under Yorkist rule. After the decisive
1:03:58
Speaker 1: Battle of Tauton in fourteen Sis sixty one, England can
1:04:01
Speaker 1: be described as not unprosperous. One very notable feature was
1:04:06
Speaker 1: the immense amount of building that was done, and that
1:04:09
Speaker 1: not so much of castles as of country houses, churches
1:04:13
Speaker 1: and cathedrals, so many of which splendidly adorn the land
1:04:17
Speaker 1: to day. The only people seriously affected by the Wars
1:04:20
Speaker 1: of the Roses were the main participants. Compared with modern warfare,
1:04:24
Speaker 1: which is unabated scientific extermination, medieval warfare was often of
1:04:30
Speaker 1: the nature of a mild adventure. The size of the
1:04:33
Speaker 1: opposing forces was very small, even compared with the scanty population.
1:04:37
Speaker 1: The chief weapons were lances, swords, longbows and crossbows, but
1:04:42
Speaker 1: protective armor was worn. The fighting was generally sporadic and desultry,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: and the casualties were very few. It was at York
1:04:51
Speaker 1: that Henry the sixth awaited the news of the results
1:04:54
Speaker 1: of the Battle of Tauten. Edward the fourth entered York
1:04:57
Speaker 1: as victor. After the battle, York, like other cities at
1:05:01
Speaker 1: the time, took care to maintain the good graces of
1:05:04
Speaker 1: both sets of combatants. Although through the Wars of the
1:05:08
Speaker 1: Roses national parliamentary government ultimately broke down and gave way
1:05:13
Speaker 1: to the strong personal kingship of Henry the seventh. The towns,
1:05:16
Speaker 1: which actually suffered little, increased their local powers. Civic government
1:05:22
Speaker 1: developed much, and trade flourished. During the century. York had
1:05:27
Speaker 1: a good friend in Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The city
1:05:30
Speaker 1: was very loyal to him and helped him by raising
1:05:33
Speaker 1: troops in his support. When he visited York, he was
1:05:36
Speaker 1: received with immense festivity and magnificence. The Mere and Corporation
1:05:40
Speaker 1: in their correspondence with him, addressed him as our full
1:05:43
Speaker 1: tender and especial good Lord. They had to thank him
1:05:47
Speaker 1: for his great labor, now late made unto the King's
1:05:50
Speaker 1: good grace for the confirmation of the liberties of this city.
1:05:54
Speaker 1: But for his death at Bosworth, York would have benefited
1:05:58
Speaker 1: greatly by his munificence. Henry the Seventh was in York
1:06:02
Speaker 1: in fourteen eighty seven, after Bosworth fourteen eighty five. The
1:06:07
Speaker 1: city had assured him of its loyalty. The marriage of
1:06:10
Speaker 1: Henry of Richmond, who represented the House of Lancaster, and Elizabeth,
1:06:14
Speaker 1: daughter of Edward, the fourth Duke of York, fittingly followed
1:06:18
Speaker 1: the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses. With Henry
1:06:21
Speaker 1: the seventh reign, a new era began in English history.
1:06:26
Speaker 1: Throughout the century, the city could not avoid contact with
1:06:29
Speaker 1: rival parties and powers. In spite, however, of rebellions and
1:06:33
Speaker 1: the Wars of the Roses, the capital of the North
1:06:36
Speaker 1: managed generally to steer a safe course through many storms.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: Other links with national affairs were the periodic visits of
1:06:45
Speaker 1: the King's judges, who traveled on circuit over the country,
1:06:48
Speaker 1: stopping at important centers to hold a size. There. Their
1:06:52
Speaker 1: duties consisted not only in settling matters of litigation, but
1:06:56
Speaker 1: also in reviewing the way in which all the King's
1:06:58
Speaker 1: affairs were being conducted. In each locality. They supervised the
1:07:02
Speaker 1: work of the sheriffs, Galtres Forest and the fish pond,
1:07:07
Speaker 1: both royal property, helped to furnish the King's table with
1:07:10
Speaker 1: food from the Royal Larda at York. Such food stuffs
1:07:14
Speaker 1: as venison, game, and fish were dispatched salted to wherever
1:07:19
Speaker 1: the King required them. End of the first section of
1:07:23
Speaker 1: chapter four. The second section of chapter four of Life
1:07:32
Speaker 1: in a Medieval City. This LibriVox recording is in the
1:07:36
Speaker 1: public domain recording by Peter Yursley. Life in a Medieval
1:07:41
Speaker 1: City Illustrated by York in the fifteenth century by Edwin Benson.
1:07:46
Speaker 1: The second section of chapter four see Business Life. Business
1:07:52
Speaker 1: in one form or another, was the occupation of the
1:07:55
Speaker 1: majority of the citizens. There were a few capitalist merchants,
1:07:59
Speaker 1: many traders, and thousands of employed work people, skilled and unskilled.
1:08:04
Speaker 1: Such street names as Spurriergate, Fishergate, Girdlergate, Hosier Lane, and
1:08:10
Speaker 1: Collier Gate would suggest that men in the same trade
1:08:14
Speaker 1: had their premises in the same quarter, possibly in the
1:08:16
Speaker 1: same street. The English middle class, which had taken form
1:08:20
Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century, was well established in the fifteenth century,
1:08:24
Speaker 1: when it became so important as to be an appreciable
1:08:27
Speaker 1: factor in the national life. The middle class arose through currency,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: the use of money to bring in more money by trading.
1:08:35
Speaker 1: Trade became the monopoly of the middle class, the successful
1:08:38
Speaker 1: master traders. It was men of this class, the capitalist employers,
1:08:43
Speaker 1: the merchants and traders, who were the mears and aldermen
1:08:46
Speaker 1: who ruled the city. The exclusiveness which was eminently characteristic
1:08:50
Speaker 1: of this class appeared especially in their attitude towards national
1:08:54
Speaker 1: taxation and in that towards trade organizations. With regard to taxation,
1:09:00
Speaker 1: the towns persistently avoided the assessment of individual traders who
1:09:04
Speaker 1: did not wish to disclose the amount of their wealth,
1:09:07
Speaker 1: by agreeing that the whole town should pay to the
1:09:10
Speaker 1: exchequer a sum to be raised by the mayor and corporation.
1:09:14
Speaker 1: The middle class achieved its aims politically by transformation from within.
1:09:19
Speaker 1: Instead of making a direct assertive attack, These master traders
1:09:23
Speaker 1: usually so developed their own interests within the established institutions,
1:09:28
Speaker 1: such as the guilds that they ultimately gained their object
1:09:31
Speaker 1: quietly and shrewdly. This class established itself against the king
1:09:36
Speaker 1: and the nobles on the one hand, and during the
1:09:39
Speaker 1: century in effective fashion against the workers on the other.
1:09:43
Speaker 1: This appears in the more definite distinctions of class among
1:09:47
Speaker 1: the citizens that arose. The masters had got the control
1:09:51
Speaker 1: of the guilds into their own power, while maintaining the
1:09:54
Speaker 1: original outward appearance of the guilds as societies of men
1:09:58
Speaker 1: affected by the same interests in das daily life. The
1:10:01
Speaker 1: employers had actually become a powerful vested class that ruled
1:10:05
Speaker 1: both city and guild life. In the fifteenth century, the
1:10:09
Speaker 1: workmen were founding fraternities of their own. Memory of the Jews,
1:10:15
Speaker 1: the money dealers of other times, survived if only from
1:10:19
Speaker 1: the harrowing stories of the various persecutions that had taken
1:10:23
Speaker 1: place all over England, and not least in York. The
1:10:26
Speaker 1: Jews had been expelled from the country by Edward the
1:10:29
Speaker 1: First with the encouragement of the Church in twelve ninety,
1:10:33
Speaker 1: partly for economic partly for religious reasons. Their supplanters, the
1:10:37
Speaker 1: Italian bankers whom Edward favored, soon acquired from their trading
1:10:42
Speaker 1: an unpopularity equal to that of the Jews as traders.
1:10:46
Speaker 1: The rise of the middle class had coincided with the
1:10:49
Speaker 1: release of money in coin from the hordes of the
1:10:52
Speaker 1: Jews and from the coffers of the knights templars, whose
1:10:55
Speaker 1: order was abolished in thirteen twelve. The merchant and trade
1:11:00
Speaker 1: leading class, apart from the nobility and the Church, formed
1:11:04
Speaker 1: the bulk of the people of the nation. They were
1:11:06
Speaker 1: the solid part of the nation that paid taxes, that
1:11:09
Speaker 1: supplied clerks, monks and priests, that liberally supported the Church,
1:11:14
Speaker 1: that kept the nation progressive and solvent by commercial undertakings.
1:11:20
Speaker 1: The professions, as we use the term today, had not
1:11:23
Speaker 1: as yet attained sufficient importance for them to form a
1:11:26
Speaker 1: distinct class division. There were a few capable physicians, but
1:11:30
Speaker 1: generally the practice of medicine was shared by the Church
1:11:33
Speaker 1: and the barber surgeons, Priests and officers of the Church
1:11:37
Speaker 1: had the privilege peculiar to the Church, by which even
1:11:40
Speaker 1: a poor but intellectually capable man could rise to high
1:11:43
Speaker 1: office and become the social equal of nobles. Architecture was
1:11:48
Speaker 1: practiced by master masons under the patronage of leading ecclesiastics
1:11:52
Speaker 1: and nobles. Teaching was nearly all the work of the church.
1:11:57
Speaker 1: The lawyers, however, were already to be distinguished from those
1:12:01
Speaker 1: who gained profit by dealing in goods, for they made
1:12:04
Speaker 1: profit from transactions on paper, from managing the interests of others,
1:12:08
Speaker 1: from trading in their own acute mental powers. The wool
1:12:13
Speaker 1: trade was by far the most extensive and flourishing trade
1:12:16
Speaker 1: of England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This was
1:12:19
Speaker 1: the trade that made England great commercially. Wool was England's
1:12:23
Speaker 1: raw material and the source of most of her wealth.
1:12:26
Speaker 1: The numerous monasteries had huge sheep farms. Edward the third
1:12:30
Speaker 1: had encouraged foreign cloth workers to settle in England. In York,
1:12:34
Speaker 1: as in other places, the first York craftsmen to be
1:12:37
Speaker 1: incorporated were the weavers, who received a charter from Henry
1:12:41
Speaker 1: the Second, in return for which they paid a tax
1:12:43
Speaker 1: to the King for the customs and liberties he granted them.
1:12:47
Speaker 1: The weavers were the largest and wealthiest body of traders.
1:12:51
Speaker 1: Guilds had developed from societies of masters and men engaged
1:12:55
Speaker 1: in the same trade to the trade guilds, which in
1:12:58
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century were made corporations. The lower ranks of
1:13:02
Speaker 1: members being the workers. The higher ranks, including the office holders,
1:13:06
Speaker 1: the richer merchants, the capitalist employers. The ruling committees of
1:13:11
Speaker 1: the trade guilds made regulations and generally governed their particular trades.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: Despite the power of the guilds, the municipal authority maintained
1:13:20
Speaker 1: its supremacy and civic government because it enforced the ordinances
1:13:24
Speaker 1: of the trades. Moreover, disputes between the guilds themselves gave
1:13:29
Speaker 1: the city authority opportunities of increasing its power, of which
1:13:33
Speaker 1: it availed itself. The system of serfdom, by which serfs
1:13:38
Speaker 1: were bound to a particular domain and owned by their overlord,
1:13:42
Speaker 1: had not yet ceased. Nearly all the workmen of York, however,
1:13:46
Speaker 1: were freemen by e they had full and complete citizenship.
1:13:50
Speaker 1: The members of the councils of aldermen and councilors, the
1:13:53
Speaker 1: mayors and city officials, the members of the trade guilds
1:13:57
Speaker 1: were all freemen. In the fifth efteenth century, the wealthy
1:14:01
Speaker 1: and important employers and traders governed the guilds. They were
1:14:05
Speaker 1: in the position and had the power to regulate the
1:14:08
Speaker 1: conduct in every way of their own trades. Thus, rules
1:14:13
Speaker 1: were laid down as to the terms of admission of
1:14:16
Speaker 1: men to the practice of a trade, the government of
1:14:19
Speaker 1: the guild and the meetings of the members and ruling committees.
1:14:22
Speaker 1: The moral standard of the members in their work and trafficking.
1:14:25
Speaker 1: The payments of masters to workers, the prices of goods
1:14:29
Speaker 1: to be sold to the public or other traders, the
1:14:31
Speaker 1: rates of fines and the amount of confiscations inflicted on
1:14:35
Speaker 1: those who broke the rules of their guild. The terms
1:14:38
Speaker 1: on which strangers English and foreign were to be allowed
1:14:41
Speaker 1: to pursue their trade in the city, whether Sunday trading
1:14:44
Speaker 1: was to be permitted or not, the duties of the searchers,
1:14:48
Speaker 1: Everything incident to the share of the guild in the
1:14:50
Speaker 1: city's production of pageant plays. The question of the terms
1:14:55
Speaker 1: of the residents and trading of strangers received constant consideration.
1:14:59
Speaker 1: The s the city had, in many respects complete local autonomy,
1:15:03
Speaker 1: and rules were made with regard to strangers who came
1:15:06
Speaker 1: to carry on their trades in the city. From fourteen
1:15:09
Speaker 1: fifty nine, aliens had by municipal law to live in
1:15:13
Speaker 1: one place only at the sign of the bull in
1:15:15
Speaker 1: Kearney Street, unless they received special permission from the mayor
1:15:19
Speaker 1: to reside elsewhere. The guilds were ruled by masters and wardens.
1:15:24
Speaker 1: They had their various officials. The searchers were officers appointed
1:15:28
Speaker 1: to observe that the rules of the trade were being
1:15:31
Speaker 1: carried out properly. They took care that only authorized members
1:15:34
Speaker 1: pursued the trade of the guild of which they were
1:15:37
Speaker 1: the officers. They vigilantly watched the conduct of the members,
1:15:40
Speaker 1: and it was their duty to take action in case
1:15:43
Speaker 1: of infringement of the rules, and to bring offenders before
1:15:46
Speaker 1: the mayor in his court. The wealthy trading class all
1:15:50
Speaker 1: over the country did great and lasting work in founding
1:15:53
Speaker 1: grammar schools and building or rebuilding cathedrals and churches, or
1:15:58
Speaker 1: parts of them. There was a social side to the guilds.
1:16:02
Speaker 1: This appeared in the public processions and the performance of
1:16:05
Speaker 1: plays the morality and mystery plays of medieval England. There
1:16:09
Speaker 1: was also a strong religious side to the guilds. The
1:16:13
Speaker 1: processions and plays were fundamentally religious. The church's festivals were
1:16:17
Speaker 1: recognised as holidays. Much money was given and bequeathed for
1:16:21
Speaker 1: the foundation of chantries, which, with their priests, had their
1:16:24
Speaker 1: place also in the educational life of the city. The
1:16:29
Speaker 1: merchants lived well They were rich from trade, and through
1:16:32
Speaker 1: the corporate guilds, governed their own trades, both legislatively and executively.
1:16:38
Speaker 1: The highest offices in civic life were theirs. They lived
1:16:41
Speaker 1: in houses as splendid as they cared to have them.
1:16:44
Speaker 1: They furnished their homes with quantities of silver plate, both
1:16:48
Speaker 1: for use and for ornament, for this was the most
1:16:50
Speaker 1: suitable outlet for superfluous wealth in days when modern facilities
1:16:54
Speaker 1: for investment did not exist. They wore clothes of fine material,
1:16:59
Speaker 1: richly trimmed. They were honored citizens. They were earnest in religion,
1:17:03
Speaker 1: and their benevolence to the church is very remarkable. They
1:17:06
Speaker 1: were forming a lesser aristocracy now that they were becoming
1:17:10
Speaker 1: owners of agricultural land as well as town property. They
1:17:14
Speaker 1: had the benefits of wealth and comfort, while they were
1:17:17
Speaker 1: shrewd enough to avoid the penalties of advertised riches. A
1:17:21
Speaker 1: typical instance of a successful merchant who rose to high
1:17:24
Speaker 1: positions was that of Sir Richard York, who was Mayor
1:17:28
Speaker 1: of the Staple of Calais and Lord Mayor of York
1:17:31
Speaker 1: in fourteen sixty nine and fourteen eighty two, and Member
1:17:34
Speaker 1: of Parliament. A window in Saint John's Church, Micklegate, in
1:17:38
Speaker 1: commemoration of him, is still to be seen. A shield
1:17:42
Speaker 1: bearing his arms azure saltire argent appears in the glass.
1:17:47
Speaker 1: Another bears the arms of the merchants of the wool
1:17:49
Speaker 1: staple of Calais. He was knighted by Henry the Seventh
1:17:53
Speaker 1: when that king was in York in fourteen eighty seven.
1:17:57
Speaker 1: Masters took apprentices, who themselves generally became masters in their turn.
1:18:02
Speaker 1: The conditions of apprenticeship were ruled in detail by the guilds.
1:18:06
Speaker 1: When a workman became a skilled artisan, he was called
1:18:10
Speaker 1: a journeyman, that is, a man who earned a full
1:18:13
Speaker 1: day's pay for his work. Footnote journeyman from French journey
1:18:19
Speaker 1: and footnote. The legal hours of work were from March
1:18:23
Speaker 1: to September from five a m. To seven thirty p m.
1:18:26
Speaker 1: With half an hour for breakfast and an hour and
1:18:28
Speaker 1: a half for dinner. Saturday was universally a half holiday.
1:18:32
Speaker 1: There were forty four working weeks in a year, and
1:18:35
Speaker 1: consequently a total of holidays and non working times of
1:18:39
Speaker 1: eight weeks. The burden of the very long hours was
1:18:42
Speaker 1: increased by the great physical exertion required from men who
1:18:46
Speaker 1: had to do much that is now done with the
1:18:48
Speaker 1: help of machinery. The strain was not always unrecognized. For
1:18:52
Speaker 1: the Minster workmen were allowed a period of rest during
1:18:55
Speaker 1: the working day. Some of the men engaged in the
1:18:58
Speaker 1: construction of the Minster not York Men. The men employed
1:19:02
Speaker 1: there were, by exception, under ecclesiastical control. They were not
1:19:06
Speaker 1: governed by any of the city trade guilds. The Master
1:19:09
Speaker 1: Mason was in charge of the whole of the building operations.
1:19:13
Speaker 1: A list of trades in the city will suggest the
1:19:15
Speaker 1: kinds of business there were. Some of the names will
1:19:18
Speaker 1: go far to explain some modern surnames wool trades, mercers,
1:19:24
Speaker 1: tapeters and couchers, makers of tapestry, hangings, carpets and coverlets, fullers,
1:19:30
Speaker 1: card makers, litesters, dyers, listers, shermen, sheer men, sled men, dyers,
1:19:38
Speaker 1: weavers of woolen, leather trades, barkers, tanners, curriers, building trades, carpenters,
1:19:46
Speaker 1: rights and joiners, plasterers, tilers, ironmongers, painters, glaziers, food trades, spices,
1:19:55
Speaker 1: grocers from French ipisier, cooks and water leaders, baxters, bakers,
1:20:02
Speaker 1: vintners and taverners, bouchet butchers, poulters, poultry dealers, wine drawers,
1:20:09
Speaker 1: carters of wine, sauce makers. Footnote. Sauce was much used
1:20:15
Speaker 1: to people of the Middle Ages had an especial liking
1:20:18
Speaker 1: for spices and highly seasoned foods. End footnote. Outfitting trades tailors, skinners,
1:20:25
Speaker 1: vestment makers, glovers, hosiers, hat makers, cap makers, cordwainers, cobblers, saddlers,
1:20:32
Speaker 1: girdlers and nailers, spurriers and lorimers, makers of spurs, bits
1:20:38
Speaker 1: for bridles, et cetera. Armor trades, armorers, smiths, bowers and
1:20:43
Speaker 1: fleshe fletchers, makers of bows and arrows from the French
1:20:48
Speaker 1: flesh household trades, coopers, pewterers and founders, chaundlers, makers of
1:20:55
Speaker 1: candles and wax images, potters, coulters, buckle makers, sheathers, blas, bladesmiths, drapers,
1:21:01
Speaker 1: linen weavers, miscellaneous trades, goldsmiths, latiners workers in the metal
1:21:07
Speaker 1: called Latin barber, surgeons, the medieval medical practitioners, partierminers and bookbinders, scriveners,
1:21:16
Speaker 1: writers of texts, ostlers, inn holders, shipwrights, fishers and mariners.
1:21:23
Speaker 1: Artist craftsmen of York supplied most of the churches of
1:21:26
Speaker 1: the North of England with their beautiful vessels, furniture and ornaments.
1:21:30
Speaker 1: In the workshops of the city the metropolis of the North,
1:21:34
Speaker 1: there were worked and made embroidered vestments of all kinds,
1:21:38
Speaker 1: engraved chalices and vessels of silver and of gold, and
1:21:42
Speaker 1: carved work including statues and images in stone, wood and wax.
1:21:47
Speaker 1: Bells were cast with beautiful lettering. Brasses for grave slabs
1:21:52
Speaker 1: were made bearing finely designed effigies. Marketing i e. Trading
1:21:58
Speaker 1: was done mostly at the frequent and regis gular markets
1:22:00
Speaker 1: and at the fairs. The right to hold a market
1:22:03
Speaker 1: or fare was among the rights obtained by means of
1:22:06
Speaker 1: royal charters. While markets were held once or several times
1:22:10
Speaker 1: a week or every day, fares took place more rarely
1:22:13
Speaker 1: and at some of the most important and popular holiday
1:22:16
Speaker 1: seasons of the year, like Whitsuntide. Firs attracted a much
1:22:20
Speaker 1: larger public than the markets in the city. There were
1:22:23
Speaker 1: markets in different places for different kinds of produce on
1:22:26
Speaker 1: certain days. For instance, in the fifteenth century, there was
1:22:30
Speaker 1: a market of live stock at Toft Green every Friday.
1:22:33
Speaker 1: The public squares called Thursday Market and pavement were used
1:22:37
Speaker 1: as market places. Some markets were held in the streets.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: Stalls were set up on which to exhibit the wares,
1:22:43
Speaker 1: the ordinary food stuffs and materials, just as in the
1:22:46
Speaker 1: open market held at the present time in the long
1:22:48
Speaker 1: and broad Parliament Street formed of Thursday Market and pavement
1:22:52
Speaker 1: and the space formerly occupied by a compact mass of
1:22:55
Speaker 1: old houses between the two originally distinct squares were the
1:22:59
Speaker 1: things sold and bought at the medieval markets, such as butter, meat, fish, linen, leather, corn, poultry, herbs. Some,
1:23:07
Speaker 1: for example, butcher's shops kept open market every day. Craftsmen
1:23:12
Speaker 1: worked goods at the premises of their merchant employers, which
1:23:15
Speaker 1: usually combined the latter's home and workshop. It was chiefly
1:23:18
Speaker 1: at the markets and fairs that these goods were sold.
1:23:22
Speaker 1: Markets and fairs were controlled by the authority, whether municipal
1:23:26
Speaker 1: or archaepiscopal, that possessed the right of holding them. Again,
1:23:30
Speaker 1: particular care was taken to ensure preference being obtained by
1:23:33
Speaker 1: the citizens over strangers. The Lammas fhairs were held under
1:23:37
Speaker 1: the authority of the archbishops, who assumed the rule of
1:23:41
Speaker 1: the city and suburbs for the period of the fair.
1:23:43
Speaker 1: The sheriff's authority, in consequence, was suspended for that period.
1:23:47
Speaker 1: The archbishop meanwhile took tolls, and all cases that arose
1:23:51
Speaker 1: during the holding of the fair were judged by a
1:23:53
Speaker 1: court set up by him. Fairs combined both trading and entertainments,
1:23:59
Speaker 1: for they were held on public holidays. They fostered trade
1:24:02
Speaker 1: and served to provide a change from the ordinary routine
1:24:05
Speaker 1: of life. It was perhaps at fairs that medieval people
1:24:09
Speaker 1: were at their noisiest, for these were occasions when they
1:24:12
Speaker 1: gave themselves up unrestrainedly to merrymaking, wild and clamorous strolling
1:24:18
Speaker 1: players and the whole variety of medieval entertainers set up
1:24:21
Speaker 1: their stands and booths, and amused the dense, surging crowds
1:24:25
Speaker 1: that thronged the squares and streets. York had a large
1:24:30
Speaker 1: overseas trade, especially in wool and manufactured cloth. Some of
1:24:34
Speaker 1: its merchants owned property abroad. Some went abroad and encountered
1:24:38
Speaker 1: perils by sea and perils from foreigners on the continent.
1:24:41
Speaker 1: York traded with the Low countries, where verr near Middleburg
1:24:45
Speaker 1: and Dordrecht were ports that ships entered to discharge cargoes
1:24:50
Speaker 1: loaded on the York Keys. The trade between York and
1:24:53
Speaker 1: the Baltic ports was much greater than that done with
1:24:56
Speaker 1: them from any other English port. Foreign sailors were to
1:25:00
Speaker 1: be seen in the streets of fifteenth century York. Foreign
1:25:03
Speaker 1: goods were handled in the city. Wines were imported from France,
1:25:07
Speaker 1: fine cloths from Flemish towns, silks, velvet and glass from Italy,
1:25:12
Speaker 1: while from the Baltic came timber and fur. From the
1:25:15
Speaker 1: North Sea came fish, much of which was brought to
1:25:18
Speaker 1: York from the coast by pack horse across the moors.
1:25:21
Speaker 1: The herring was an important article of food. Money was
1:25:25
Speaker 1: measured in marks, shillings and pence of the current coins.
1:25:29
Speaker 1: Those in gold were called the angel, half angel, the noble,
1:25:33
Speaker 1: half noble, and quarter noble. In silver there were the groat,
1:25:37
Speaker 1: half groat, the penny and halfpenny. The local branch of
1:25:40
Speaker 1: the Royal Mint was housed within the castle. The building
1:25:43
Speaker 1: containing it was rebuilt in accordance with an order of
1:25:46
Speaker 1: fourteen twenty three. The coins from this mint, which was
1:25:50
Speaker 1: at work during a large part of the fifteenth century,
1:25:52
Speaker 1: bore distinctive marks to show the place of minting. Silver
1:25:56
Speaker 1: coins bore the inscription Civitas Ebaraki. The archbishops continued to
1:26:01
Speaker 1: use their privilege of coining money. The following extracts interesting
1:26:06
Speaker 1: for the substance and the literary form, are taken from
1:26:08
Speaker 1: the City records as published by the Certes Society, Volumes
1:26:12
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty one hundred and twenty five The
1:26:15
Speaker 1: York Memorandum Book from the Ordinances of the Pewterers fourteen
1:26:20
Speaker 1: sixteen ord Naciones puderrariorum SIUs sen lisaticle de les poudireer
1:26:27
Speaker 1: de lndr licueux de gen de meurs malativis, decest de
1:26:32
Speaker 1: cite de verric Montegre pour acad de Eto denaier entreu Padisson,
1:26:38
Speaker 1: passe de von jour Moreton Meyers. Others. Of the earlier
1:26:43
Speaker 1: ordinances are in Anglo French, many are in Latin. Later
1:26:47
Speaker 1: ordinances are in English, as in the case of those
1:26:50
Speaker 1: of the Carpenters fourteen eighty two, of which the following
1:26:54
Speaker 1: are the opening paragraphs. In the honor of God and
1:26:57
Speaker 1: for the weal of this full honorable City of York
1:27:01
Speaker 1: and of the carpenters inhabit in the same, at the
1:27:04
Speaker 1: special instance and prayer of Here follows a list of
1:27:07
Speaker 1: names carpenters of this Full Noble City, are ordained the
1:27:12
Speaker 1: twenty second day of November, in the twenty second year
1:27:15
Speaker 1: of the reign of King Edward, in the second time
1:27:18
Speaker 1: of the Mayoralty of the Right Honorable Richard York, Mayor
1:27:22
Speaker 1: of the said City, by the authority of the whole
1:27:24
Speaker 1: Council of the Said of Full Honorable City, forever to
1:27:28
Speaker 1: be kept these ordinances following first, forasmuch as herefore there
1:27:33
Speaker 1: has been of old time a brotherhood had and used
1:27:37
Speaker 1: among the occupation and craft above said, the which of
1:27:41
Speaker 1: long continuance, have used, and as it yearly used to
1:27:45
Speaker 1: find of their proper costs, a light of diverse torches
1:27:49
Speaker 1: in the feast of Corpus Christie day, or of the
1:27:51
Speaker 1: morn after, in the honour and worship of God and
1:27:54
Speaker 1: all Saints, and to go in procession with the same
1:27:58
Speaker 1: tortures with the blessed sacrament from the Abbey founded of
1:28:01
Speaker 1: the Holy Trinity in Micklegate in the said city, on
1:28:04
Speaker 1: to the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in the same city,
1:28:08
Speaker 1: and also have done and used diverse other rightful, good
1:28:12
Speaker 1: and honorable deeds, as hereafter it shall more plainly appear,
1:28:18
Speaker 1: it is ordained and established by the said Mayor aldermen,
1:28:21
Speaker 1: and all the whole Council of the said full noble City,
1:28:25
Speaker 1: by the consent and assent of all them of the
1:28:27
Speaker 1: said occupation in the said city, that the said fraternity
1:28:31
Speaker 1: and Brotherhood shall be hereafter forever, kept and contained as
1:28:36
Speaker 1: it has been in times past, and that every brother
1:28:39
Speaker 1: thereof shall pay yearly for the sustination thereof sixpence, that
1:28:44
Speaker 1: is to say, at every half year threepence, Providing always
1:28:48
Speaker 1: that every man of the said occupation within the said
1:28:52
Speaker 1: city shall not be compelled nor boundened to be of
1:28:55
Speaker 1: the said fraternity nor brotherhood, nor none to be thereof,
1:28:59
Speaker 1: but such as will of their own free will. End
1:29:04
Speaker 1: of the second section of Chapter four. The third section
1:29:13
Speaker 1: of chapter four of Life in a Medieval City. This
1:29:17
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Peter Yearsley.
1:29:22
Speaker 1: Life in a Medieval City Illustrated by York in the
1:29:25
Speaker 1: fifteenth century by Edwin Benson, Chapter four, Section D Religious life.
1:29:32
Speaker 1: Insistence can hardly be too great. On the tremendous and
1:29:35
Speaker 1: widespread influence of the Church in the Middle Ages. The
1:29:39
Speaker 1: greatness of the Church continued during the fifteenth century. It
1:29:42
Speaker 1: is derived from the traditions of an age when absolute
1:29:45
Speaker 1: power prevailed, from the undisputed usage of centuries, from a
1:29:49
Speaker 1: logical system of dogmas, and from international sanctions. The ornate services,
1:29:55
Speaker 1: allegiance to the distant pope, the immense hold of the
1:29:58
Speaker 1: priests on the laity, the large territorial possessions of ecclesiastical
1:30:03
Speaker 1: bodies impressed the people with the power of the church.
1:30:06
Speaker 1: These things came to the fifteenth century as established facts.
1:30:10
Speaker 1: The spirit of revolt indeed had appeared with Wycliffe and
1:30:13
Speaker 1: his followers in the fourteenth century, but Lollardy met with
1:30:17
Speaker 1: severe oppressive opposition. It was not till Tudor times that
1:30:21
Speaker 1: the new spirit, stimulated by the revival of learning, the Reformation,
1:30:26
Speaker 1: the invention of printing from type, geographical discovery, the suppression
1:30:30
Speaker 1: of long years of Internissan warfare, and the establishment of
1:30:34
Speaker 1: a strong government, had accumulated enough energy to burst the
1:30:38
Speaker 1: bonds of medievalism. The fifteenth century was at the end
1:30:42
Speaker 1: of an age. It is interesting to note that Wycliffe,
1:30:45
Speaker 1: who died thirteen eighty four, one of England's greatest men,
1:30:49
Speaker 1: was ordained in York. He stands out as a daring
1:30:52
Speaker 1: and inspired pioneer who strove to provide the land with
1:30:56
Speaker 1: priests who were true and earnest shepherds. He attempted the
1:30:59
Speaker 1: super the human task of reviving true religion among a
1:31:03
Speaker 1: people that had become, to a certain extent dull, irreverent, ignorant,
1:31:07
Speaker 1: and thoroughly superstitious. By the fifteenth century, the Church was
1:31:12
Speaker 1: suffering from those ills which needed and later gained drastic treatment.
1:31:17
Speaker 1: The Church had done almost miraculous work in the first
1:31:21
Speaker 1: few centuries of its existence, if we think only of
1:31:24
Speaker 1: the success with which it substituted its system of morality
1:31:28
Speaker 1: for that of pagan Rome. The fifteenth century followed those
1:31:31
Speaker 1: centuries when the Church of England, under the direction of
1:31:34
Speaker 1: great and earnest men, was doing its work with conspicuous success.
1:31:39
Speaker 1: Yet the very forces that enabled the Church to make
1:31:41
Speaker 1: itself a living power in the dark Ages, the early
1:31:44
Speaker 1: centuries embracing the fall of Rome, the Empire of Charlemagne,
1:31:48
Speaker 1: and the kingship of Alfred the Great, became harmful to
1:31:51
Speaker 1: its continued activity, beneficially in many directions. The inadequacy of
1:31:56
Speaker 1: its work in these centuries appears in the lack of
1:31:59
Speaker 1: spiritual acts, stuity, and in the predominance of the material
1:32:02
Speaker 1: side of religion. The medieval church suffered badly from excessive conservatism,
1:32:08
Speaker 1: which led towards sloth and a complacent inactivity. The morbid
1:32:12
Speaker 1: element showed itself during the fifteenth century, mainly in lack
1:32:16
Speaker 1: of real earnestness, in the enjoyment of luxurious laziness, and
1:32:20
Speaker 1: in the steady neglect of the age to revise its Christianity.
1:32:24
Speaker 1: The Church, moreover, with its complete segregation from other estates
1:32:28
Speaker 1: of the realm, had become unpopular socially, while in its
1:32:32
Speaker 1: political and temporal aspects it had become an immense corporation
1:32:36
Speaker 1: with strong vested interests. Kings found it necessary to fight it.
1:32:41
Speaker 1: Religious reformers had to rise up and overcome every form
1:32:44
Speaker 1: of repression used against them. The decadence is exemplified incidentally
1:32:49
Speaker 1: in the increasing poverty in material and expression of the
1:32:53
Speaker 1: monastic chronicles, which practically died out by fourteen eighty five.
1:32:57
Speaker 1: The period of turmoil and change was yet to come.
1:33:02
Speaker 1: Such was the general state of affairs. Nevertheless, the forms
1:33:06
Speaker 1: and practices of the church continued, the granting of indulgences
1:33:10
Speaker 1: and pardons. The inexhaustible demand for Peter's pence went on vigorously.
1:33:15
Speaker 1: A recognized means of publicly raising funds was employed in
1:33:19
Speaker 1: February fourteen, fifty five to six, when the archbishop proclaimed
1:33:23
Speaker 1: an indulgence of forty days to those who would help
1:33:27
Speaker 1: the friars preachers whose cloister and buildings, including thirty four cells,
1:33:31
Speaker 1: together with their books, vestments, duels, and sacred vessels, had
1:33:35
Speaker 1: been destroyed by fire. The faith of the ordinary citizen was, however, intact.
1:33:41
Speaker 1: The Church came into the people's life daily. The citizen
1:33:45
Speaker 1: could not walk away from his home without seeing a
1:33:47
Speaker 1: church and meeting a priest or a friar. He attended
1:33:51
Speaker 1: to the church services and fulfilled his religious duties. Baptism, marriage, death, illness,
1:33:57
Speaker 1: public rejoicing, soldiering, dramatic acas, entertainments, the language of daily life.
1:34:02
Speaker 1: All these bore the stamp of the Church. The very
1:34:05
Speaker 1: days of relief from work were holy days feast days
1:34:09
Speaker 1: in the Church's calendar. Taking part in the public processions
1:34:13
Speaker 1: on Corpus Christi Day, a great annual holiday, was a
1:34:16
Speaker 1: religious exercise. At the same time, this day was devoted
1:34:20
Speaker 1: especially to entertainment. Wills of the century show that the
1:34:24
Speaker 1: citizens lived as religiously as formerly. This spirit is seen,
1:34:28
Speaker 1: perhaps most characteristically in the number of candles that wealthy
1:34:32
Speaker 1: citizens bequeathed for use in church, and in the sums
1:34:35
Speaker 1: of money they left to specified clergy and other religious
1:34:39
Speaker 1: for the provision of masses for the souls of themselves,
1:34:42
Speaker 1: their wives and families, and for those for whom they
1:34:45
Speaker 1: ought to pray. Masses were thus provided for by hundreds,
1:34:49
Speaker 1: and in some cases by thousands. The following extracts from
1:34:53
Speaker 1: the will of a rich citizen and merchant of York,
1:34:55
Speaker 1: who had been cherif and Mayor of the city, show
1:34:58
Speaker 1: admirably the spirit of a member of the middle class
1:35:00
Speaker 1: in the fifteenth century. Footnote as translated from the Latin
1:35:05
Speaker 1: by the late mister R. B. Cook, and found among
1:35:08
Speaker 1: his valuable contributions to the publications of the Yorkshire Architectural Society.
1:35:13
Speaker 1: End footnote. In the name of God, Amen, the fourth
1:35:18
Speaker 1: day of September, in the year of Our Lord, fourteen
1:35:21
Speaker 1: thirty six, I Thomas bracebrig citizen and merchant York, sound
1:35:27
Speaker 1: of mind and having health of body established, and dispose
1:35:31
Speaker 1: my will in this manner. First, I command and bequeath
1:35:35
Speaker 1: my soul to God Almighty, to the blessed Mary, Mother
1:35:38
Speaker 1: of God and ever virgin and to all Saints, and
1:35:42
Speaker 1: my body to be buried in the parish Church of
1:35:44
Speaker 1: Saint Savior in York, before the image of the Crucifix
1:35:47
Speaker 1: of Our Lord Jesus Christ, next to the bodies of
1:35:50
Speaker 1: my wives and children lately buried there. For having which
1:35:54
Speaker 1: burial in that place, I bequeathed to the fabric of
1:35:57
Speaker 1: the same parish church twenty shillings. Also I bequeath for
1:36:01
Speaker 1: my mortuary my best garment with hood appropriate for my body.
1:36:05
Speaker 1: Also I bequeath to Master John Amal, Rector of the
1:36:08
Speaker 1: said parish church, for my tithes and oblations forgotten, and
1:36:12
Speaker 1: that he may more specially pray for my soul twenty shillings.
1:36:16
Speaker 1: Also I bequeath for two candles to burn at my
1:36:19
Speaker 1: exequies thirty pounds of wax, Also ten torches to burn
1:36:24
Speaker 1: around my body on the said day of my burial,
1:36:26
Speaker 1: and that each torch shall contain in itself fourteen pounds
1:36:30
Speaker 1: of pure wax. Also I bequeath to ten men carrying
1:36:34
Speaker 1: or holding the said ten torches in my exequies, ten gowns,
1:36:38
Speaker 1: so that each of the said ten poor men shall
1:36:40
Speaker 1: have in his gown and hood three and a half
1:36:43
Speaker 1: ells of russet or black cloth, and that the aforesaid
1:36:46
Speaker 1: gowns shall be lined with white woolen cloth. And I
1:36:50
Speaker 1: will that my executors shall pay for the making of
1:36:52
Speaker 1: the same gowns with hoods. Also, I will and ordain
1:36:56
Speaker 1: that two fit and proper chaplains shall be found to
1:36:59
Speaker 1: celebrate for me my soul, and the souls of my parents, wives, children, benefactors,
1:37:04
Speaker 1: and for the souls of those for whom I am
1:37:06
Speaker 1: bound or am debtor, as God shall know in that respect,
1:37:10
Speaker 1: and for the souls of all the faithful departed, for
1:37:13
Speaker 1: one whole year immediately after my decease in my parish church.
1:37:18
Speaker 1: The will is a very long one. Altogether, four hundred
1:37:21
Speaker 1: and seventy pounds of wax to last fifteen years would
1:37:25
Speaker 1: be necessary to satisfy the requirements of the will. Seven
1:37:28
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five masses are specially arranged for. Besides,
1:37:32
Speaker 1: provision was made for masses to be said by more
1:37:34
Speaker 1: than twenty one chaplains, the religious of five priories for women,
1:37:38
Speaker 1: and by every friar and priest of the four orders
1:37:41
Speaker 1: of Friars in York. There were also bequests to two anchorresses,
1:37:45
Speaker 1: one anchorite and one hermit, to pray for the soul
1:37:48
Speaker 1: of the Testator and the souls aforesaid. Bequests were made
1:37:52
Speaker 1: to the poor of Saint Saviors, to lepers in the
1:37:55
Speaker 1: four houses, for lepers in the suburbs, to the poor
1:37:59
Speaker 1: in Maison didas to the prisoners in the castle, in
1:38:02
Speaker 1: the Archbishop's prison, and in the Kidcoat. The Testator ordered
1:38:06
Speaker 1: gifts of coal, wood and shoes, and one thousand white
1:38:10
Speaker 1: loaves of bread to be made among the poor and needy.
1:38:14
Speaker 1: The bequests to relatives and directions to the executors occupy
1:38:18
Speaker 1: a large part of the will, which is that of
1:38:21
Speaker 1: a particularly wealthy and important citizen. Charity, however, was a
1:38:25
Speaker 1: marked characteristic of these men, who had become rich through trade.
1:38:30
Speaker 1: With a generous spirit, they put into practice the teachings
1:38:32
Speaker 1: about giving to the poor and to prisoners. The amount
1:38:35
Speaker 1: of money spent in founding chanteres, in paying priests for
1:38:39
Speaker 1: masses for the departed, testifies to their faith. It was
1:38:43
Speaker 1: part of the policy of the Church to keep the
1:38:45
Speaker 1: instruction of the people young and old in its own control.
1:38:49
Speaker 1: Practically all the educational work in York during the century
1:38:53
Speaker 1: was the work of the Church. Through the monasteries and hospitals.
1:38:57
Speaker 1: The Church did valuable work in feeding the poor, helping
1:39:01
Speaker 1: the needy, and in educating the poorer citizens. Boys. The
1:39:04
Speaker 1: Royal Hospital of Saint Leonard did such work. It was
1:39:08
Speaker 1: a peculiar institution, being under the authority of the king
1:39:11
Speaker 1: and containing a sisterhood as well as a brotherhood. It
1:39:14
Speaker 1: included a grammar school and a song school. As an institution,
1:39:19
Speaker 1: it was self supporting. Food was made on the premises
1:39:22
Speaker 1: and the carpenters, and similar work was done by brethren
1:39:25
Speaker 1: in the hospital's own workshops. The large number of priests
1:39:29
Speaker 1: were variously employed. There were priests who officiated in the
1:39:32
Speaker 1: monastic churches, in the parish churches as rectors and chaplains,
1:39:36
Speaker 1: of whom there were three hundred in York in fourteen
1:39:39
Speaker 1: thirty six. In the cathedral, where the number of chartry
1:39:42
Speaker 1: chapels was very great, and where services were held simultaneously
1:39:46
Speaker 1: as well as frequently, some priests were vicars. That is,
1:39:49
Speaker 1: while the living or curee of souls was held by
1:39:52
Speaker 1: the rector, the vicar was the actual priest in charge
1:39:55
Speaker 1: for the rector. Probably held more than one benefice and
1:39:58
Speaker 1: could not serve persons in more than one. Generally, it
1:40:02
Speaker 1: was a corporate body like the Dean and Chapter, or
1:40:05
Speaker 1: a monastery that was the rector of a number of
1:40:07
Speaker 1: livings at the same time. Of the many clergies serving
1:40:11
Speaker 1: the Minster, the Dean, who was the incumbent, ranked first.
1:40:15
Speaker 1: Much of the revenue of the Dean and Chapter, the
1:40:17
Speaker 1: governing body, came from landed possessions in York and various
1:40:20
Speaker 1: parts of the surrounding country. These possessions, divided into prebends,
1:40:25
Speaker 1: provided livings for the thirty six prebendaries or canons, who
1:40:29
Speaker 1: collectively formed the Chapter. Each cannon served at the Minster
1:40:33
Speaker 1: during a specified portion of the year when he lived
1:40:35
Speaker 1: at his residence at York. The residences of the prebendaries
1:40:39
Speaker 1: were mostly round the Minster close, while his own parish
1:40:43
Speaker 1: was served vicariously while he was at York. Each cannon
1:40:46
Speaker 1: had a minor cannon or vicar choral to act as
1:40:49
Speaker 1: his deputy at York when he was absent. These vicars
1:40:52
Speaker 1: choral formed a corporate body and lived collegiately in the bedern.
1:40:56
Speaker 1: The numerous chantries in the Minster were served by priests
1:41:00
Speaker 1: who also lived collegiately, but at Saint William's College, The college,
1:41:04
Speaker 1: at the head of which was a provost, was founded
1:41:06
Speaker 1: about the middle of the century. Previously, these priests had
1:41:09
Speaker 1: lived in private houses. The parish priest was occupied in
1:41:14
Speaker 1: performing the services in his church, in hearing confessions, in
1:41:18
Speaker 1: teaching the children, in visiting, interrogating, consoling and ministering the
1:41:23
Speaker 1: sacraments to the sick and dying, and in guiding and
1:41:26
Speaker 1: sharing the life of his parish. Generally, each parish church
1:41:30
Speaker 1: had a number of clergy beside the parish priest attached
1:41:34
Speaker 1: to it. The number varied from one to ten or more,
1:41:37
Speaker 1: according to the number of chantries at the church. Each
1:41:40
Speaker 1: priest was helped a great deal in parochial affairs by
1:41:44
Speaker 1: the parish clerk. The latter was the chiefly official for
1:41:47
Speaker 1: business in connection with the parish church. His duties required
1:41:51
Speaker 1: him to be a man of some education. The archbishop
1:41:55
Speaker 1: was both bishop of the Diocese of York and head
1:41:58
Speaker 1: of all the dioceses which together formed the northern province
1:42:01
Speaker 1: of the two provinces into which England was divided for
1:42:04
Speaker 1: the purpose of church rule. His diocese formerly extended so
1:42:08
Speaker 1: far south as to include Nottingham and Southwell. The archbishop
1:42:12
Speaker 1: was a primate and occupied a high position in the state.
1:42:16
Speaker 1: Besides being supreme head of the church in the northern province,
1:42:19
Speaker 1: he was a great landowner. He possessed besides his palace
1:42:22
Speaker 1: near the Minster, a number of seats like Corwood Castle
1:42:26
Speaker 1: in the country. When he was in London he resided
1:42:29
Speaker 1: at his fine official palace, York House. The archbishops were
1:42:33
Speaker 1: great lords of the realm in every way. Archbishop Neville,
1:42:37
Speaker 1: brother of Warwick, the Kingmaker, celebrated his installation in fourteen
1:42:41
Speaker 1: sixty five with a very famous feast. The huge amount
1:42:45
Speaker 1: and delicacy of the dishes prepared, the number of retainers employed,
1:42:49
Speaker 1: the splendor of the scene, which was honored by the
1:42:51
Speaker 1: presence of the Duke of Gloucester and members of some
1:42:53
Speaker 1: of the most noble families in the Kingdom. All the
1:42:56
Speaker 1: details of this sumptuous feast were intended to impress King
1:43:00
Speaker 1: Edward with the might of the Nevils. Ecclesiastical preferment was
1:43:05
Speaker 1: often a reward for services in other branches of the
1:43:08
Speaker 1: service of the state. Sometimes great offices in the church
1:43:11
Speaker 1: and the state were held simultaneously. Thus Archbishop Rotherham was
1:43:15
Speaker 1: also Chancellor of England for a time. Both Richard Scrope
1:43:19
Speaker 1: and William Booth, archbishops of the century, had been lawyers.
1:43:23
Speaker 1: The appointment of George Neville, who had been nominated when
1:43:26
Speaker 1: only twenty three, to the See of Exeter, was a
1:43:30
Speaker 1: purely political one, the bestowing of a high and lucrative
1:43:33
Speaker 1: office on a member of a noble family that was
1:43:36
Speaker 1: enjoying the full sunshine of popularity and power. The king
1:43:40
Speaker 1: could also benefit from church positions otherwise than by presenting
1:43:44
Speaker 1: them to partisans. During the two and a half years
1:43:47
Speaker 1: that the Sea of York was kept vacant between the
1:43:50
Speaker 1: time of the execution of Archbishop's Scrope and the appointment
1:43:53
Speaker 1: of Henry Bowitt in fourteen o seven, the revenues went
1:43:57
Speaker 1: in accordance with the established practice to the royal There
1:44:01
Speaker 1: were also clerks, educated men, but not priests, who were
1:44:06
Speaker 1: in minor orders. Many a man, asserting that he was
1:44:09
Speaker 1: a clerk, made application for trial by an ecclesiastical court,
1:44:13
Speaker 1: so as to get the benefit of the less stringent
1:44:16
Speaker 1: judgment of the church courts to which belonged the right
1:44:19
Speaker 1: of dealing with ecclesiastical offenders. One abuse within the church
1:44:24
Speaker 1: was pluralism, that is, the holding of more than one
1:44:27
Speaker 1: office at the same time, with the result that the
1:44:29
Speaker 1: holder was drawing revenue for work he could not himself do.
1:44:33
Speaker 1: William Savor, for instance, while Abbot of Saint Mary's York
1:44:37
Speaker 1: became Bishop of Carlisle, these two high offices, one monastic
1:44:42
Speaker 1: and the other secular, he held simultaneously from fourteen ninety
1:44:46
Speaker 1: five to fifteen o two. The religious orders were of
1:44:50
Speaker 1: two kinds, that is, monks and nuns who lived in
1:44:54
Speaker 1: seclusion in monasteries, abbeys or convents, and friars who lived
1:44:58
Speaker 1: under a rule but came out into the world to
1:45:01
Speaker 1: preach and work. Both kinds took the vows of chastity, poverty,
1:45:05
Speaker 1: and obedience to the rule e g. Cistercian or Benedictine,
1:45:09
Speaker 1: Franciscan or Dominican. Some but not all, monks and friars
1:45:13
Speaker 1: were priests. There were four well known orders of Mendicant Friars, Lettis, Franciscan,
1:45:19
Speaker 1: Greyfriars Friars Minor, Dominican, Black Friars, Friars, Preachers, Carmelite, White Friars,
1:45:26
Speaker 1: Augstinian Ostin Canons. Monks and friars wore sandals and long
1:45:32
Speaker 1: loose gowns with hoods or cowls which they could pull
1:45:35
Speaker 1: over their heads to serve as hats. The alternative titles
1:45:38
Speaker 1: of some of the orders of Friars came from the
1:45:40
Speaker 1: color of their friars gowns. The Carmelites used undyed cloth,
1:45:45
Speaker 1: which was white in comparison with the black of the Dominicans.
1:45:48
Speaker 1: The Benedictine monks of Saint Mary's Abbey wore black garments.
1:45:52
Speaker 1: Their heads were shaved on the crown, the technical tone
1:45:55
Speaker 1: for which was the tonsure. Monks spent their time in
1:45:59
Speaker 1: attending the freek con services in the monastery church, which
1:46:02
Speaker 1: they entered at the night and early morning services directly
1:46:05
Speaker 1: from the dormitories, in copying manuscripts, which occupied a large
1:46:09
Speaker 1: part of their day, in contemplation and in study, in
1:46:12
Speaker 1: manual work, in recreation. The cloister where work was carried on,
1:46:17
Speaker 1: and the church were the essential buildings of the monastery.
1:46:21
Speaker 1: Monastic life centered in these two places. Its arrangements were
1:46:25
Speaker 1: dictated by the purpose of making a religious atmosphere pervade everything.
1:46:29
Speaker 1: Thus a religious book was read at meals. The luxury
1:46:34
Speaker 1: and laxity that obtained in monastic life were not confined
1:46:38
Speaker 1: to the fifteenth century. The archbishop had frequent occasion in
1:46:42
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century to complain, for instance, of the use
1:46:45
Speaker 1: by monks and nuns of ornaments and of clothes of
1:46:49
Speaker 1: finer material than the traditional rule permitted. He condemned the
1:46:52
Speaker 1: wearing of clothes cut to a worldly pattern. The religious
1:46:56
Speaker 1: had to be admonished from time to time not to
1:46:59
Speaker 1: admit strains within the cloister, and to conform in all
1:47:02
Speaker 1: respects strictly to their rule. During the century, Saint Mary's
1:47:07
Speaker 1: Abbey contained about sixty monks, including the abbot, the supreme head,
1:47:11
Speaker 1: and the prior, who held the second highest office. Besides,
1:47:15
Speaker 1: there was a very large number of lay brethren, servants
1:47:19
Speaker 1: and officers. For in addition to the internal work at
1:47:22
Speaker 1: the abbey, it was the management of the abbey estates
1:47:24
Speaker 1: and business. Abbots and monks were always keen traders. Altogether,
1:47:30
Speaker 1: the personnel of Saint Mary's might have numbered about two hundred.
1:47:34
Speaker 1: The influence of such a monastery as Saint Mary's was
1:47:37
Speaker 1: very far from being restricted to affairs within the abbey walls.
1:47:41
Speaker 1: Through its abbot, it had a spokesman in the House
1:47:43
Speaker 1: of Lords. There were cells dependent on the abbey and
1:47:46
Speaker 1: often at a distance. The abbot had a number of
1:47:49
Speaker 1: residences in the country and one in London. The abbey
1:47:52
Speaker 1: itself had numerous possessions of land and manners in many
1:47:55
Speaker 1: parts of the country. This was a principal source of revenue.
1:47:59
Speaker 1: Saint Mary's Abbey also had jurisdiction over many churches, not
1:48:03
Speaker 1: only in York and Yorkshire, but in other counties as well.
1:48:06
Speaker 1: The other monastic institutions, and the Minster and some of
1:48:10
Speaker 1: the hospitals, for example, Saint Leonard's had similar rights of
1:48:13
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and the ownership of land, property and churches. In
1:48:18
Speaker 1: some of the churchyards there lived anchorites and caresses and hermits.
1:48:22
Speaker 1: These were individuals who chose to live a solitary life
1:48:25
Speaker 1: spent in prayer and religious work. Anchorites led a life
1:48:28
Speaker 1: of strict seclusion, for they were literally shut in their
1:48:31
Speaker 1: cells from the world. They did not, however, eschue all
1:48:35
Speaker 1: intercourse with others, for their solitary lives of devotion and
1:48:39
Speaker 1: in some cases of study gave them a reputation for
1:48:42
Speaker 1: wisdom that led people to seek them for their advice.
1:48:46
Speaker 1: Permission was given by the church authorities to those who
1:48:49
Speaker 1: took up this mode of life, the assumption of which
1:48:51
Speaker 1: formed part of a special service. The Pontifical of Archbishop Bainbridge,
1:48:56
Speaker 1: who held the Sea from fifteen o eight to fifteen fourteen,
1:49:00
Speaker 1: retains an office for the enclosing of an Anchorite. Hermits
1:49:04
Speaker 1: lived in less strict seclusion. Their aims were similar, but
1:49:08
Speaker 1: they went about in the world doing good works. One
1:49:11
Speaker 1: of the worst features of the religious decadence of the
1:49:14
Speaker 1: Middle Ages was the craftiness of some spurious types of men,
1:49:18
Speaker 1: as those whom Chaucer painted in The Pardoner and the Summoner,
1:49:22
Speaker 1: and Charles Reid depicted in The peripatetic Cripples of the
1:49:26
Speaker 1: Cloister and the Hearth. Chaucer wrote in the true Spirit
1:49:30
Speaker 1: of comedy mores corrigieri ridendo. But Langland, his contemporary, who
1:49:35
Speaker 1: described similar types of men of state as well as
1:49:37
Speaker 1: of church, did so from the point of view of
1:49:40
Speaker 1: a moral reformer, whose satire is a trenchant weapon. There
1:49:45
Speaker 1: were many other types of religious men, but it must
1:49:47
Speaker 1: suffice to refer to pardoners, who, by virtue of papal bulls,
1:49:51
Speaker 1: gave pardons, expecting exacting, if necessary, a reward. In return
1:49:57
Speaker 1: and to mention only Palmer's and pilgrim who were seen
1:50:01
Speaker 1: in York when they came to visit the shrine of
1:50:03
Speaker 1: Saint William in the Minster. The palmers were pilgrims who
1:50:06
Speaker 1: had visited the Holy Land. They liked to wear a
1:50:09
Speaker 1: scallop shell in their broad brimmed hats as a sign
1:50:12
Speaker 1: of their extensive travels. Journeying from shrine to shrine was
1:50:15
Speaker 1: a favorite occupation a professional one of those pilgrims who
1:50:19
Speaker 1: loved a wandering and easy life, seeing the sights and
1:50:23
Speaker 1: living at the expense of the monastic hospitality. Some pilgrimages
1:50:27
Speaker 1: were done by proxy through the employment of professional pilgrims.
1:50:31
Speaker 1: A pilgrimage to a shrine celebrated for miraculous cures or
1:50:34
Speaker 1: the efficacy of the spiritual benefit derived from worshiping at
1:50:38
Speaker 1: it and invoking the help of the saint was for
1:50:40
Speaker 1: many an exercise of deep religious devotion. There is no
1:50:44
Speaker 1: doubt moreover, that at the shrines of the saints the
1:50:47
Speaker 1: Church proved itself a great healer. It was, in fact
1:50:50
Speaker 1: the popular physician. Apart from surgery, The medical practice of
1:50:54
Speaker 1: the twentieth century is in some ways the successor of
1:50:58
Speaker 1: that of the Church of the fifteenth When very popular
1:51:02
Speaker 1: religious men died, or when if they were already dead,
1:51:06
Speaker 1: as in the case of William, Archbishop of York, who
1:51:08
Speaker 1: died in eleven fifty three and was canonized in twelve
1:51:12
Speaker 1: twenty seven, popularity sprang up. It was quite usual for
1:51:16
Speaker 1: it to be discovered that miracles were being wrought at
1:51:19
Speaker 1: their tombs. The case of the popular Archbishop's Scrope, who
1:51:22
Speaker 1: was executed, is a typical one. In this way, the
1:51:25
Speaker 1: calendar of saints was enlarged, the devout had a new interest,
1:51:29
Speaker 1: The church maintained its position in the popular eye and mind,
1:51:32
Speaker 1: and its funds increased. The medieval church, however, appeared perhaps
1:51:38
Speaker 1: at its best in its church services, which drew their
1:51:41
Speaker 1: effect from the sanctity of the magnificent building, whether cathedral
1:51:45
Speaker 1: or parish church. The oree inspired by the church politic,
1:51:49
Speaker 1: the use of Latin and the learned atmosphere, the religious teaching,
1:51:53
Speaker 1: and not least the imposing ceremonies and the ornate ritual
1:51:58
Speaker 1: performed amid a profusion of lighted wax candles by priests
1:52:02
Speaker 1: and dignitaries in resplendent vestments. The end of the third
1:52:08
Speaker 1: section of chapter four, the last section of chapter four,
1:52:18
Speaker 1: and chapter five of Life in a Medieval City. This
1:52:22
Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Peter
1:52:26
Speaker 1: Yearsley Life in a Medieval City Illustrated by York in
1:52:30
Speaker 1: the fifteenth century by Edwin Benson, Chapter four, Section e. Education.
1:52:37
Speaker 1: The only school engaged in higher education in York in
1:52:40
Speaker 1: the century was Saint Peter's School, a very old foundation
1:52:44
Speaker 1: where Alcoene, who in seven eighty two had carried educational
1:52:48
Speaker 1: reform to the Land of the Franks, had been master.
1:52:52
Speaker 1: At this school, which was attached to the cathedral, were
1:52:55
Speaker 1: educated those who were to spend their lives in scholarship,
1:52:59
Speaker 1: especially as now after residence at Oxford or Cambridge, future
1:53:02
Speaker 1: priests and clerks, the sons of the nobility and of
1:53:06
Speaker 1: the more wealthy members of the merchant class in the city.
1:53:09
Speaker 1: Other regular schools were the grammar school at the Royal
1:53:12
Speaker 1: Hospital of Saint Leonard and the one at Fossgate Hospital.
1:53:15
Speaker 1: This educational work was one of the most valuable kinds
1:53:18
Speaker 1: of public work done by these hospitals. A more elementary
1:53:23
Speaker 1: and less well organized education was given by the parish
1:53:27
Speaker 1: priests and the chantry priests, from whom the children of
1:53:30
Speaker 1: the city, generally boys and girls, received at least oral instruction.
1:53:35
Speaker 1: Girls usually received a practical upbringing at home. The only
1:53:39
Speaker 1: schools for girls were those attached to women's monasteries, of
1:53:43
Speaker 1: which there was Saint Clement's Nunnery alone in York. Educational
1:53:48
Speaker 1: welfare work, as distinct from direct and organized class teaching,
1:53:52
Speaker 1: was carried on by the friars, the religious men who
1:53:55
Speaker 1: lived under a rule, but who went out to work
1:53:57
Speaker 1: in the world instead of spending their lives in seclude
1:54:00
Speaker 1: as the monks did. The Dominican and Franciscan friars played
1:54:04
Speaker 1: an important part in education by teaching, especially at the universities.
1:54:08
Speaker 1: Education was also a foremost interest of the Augustinians, who
1:54:12
Speaker 1: supported a college at Oxford. Books, which had all to
1:54:16
Speaker 1: be written by hand, were scarce. The copying of manuscripts,
1:54:20
Speaker 1: which was done mostly in the monasteries, was laborious work.
1:54:24
Speaker 1: Instruction was given as a rule orally, but also by
1:54:27
Speaker 1: means of pictorial art and drama. The stained glass windows
1:54:31
Speaker 1: were more than ornamental additions to the church building. They
1:54:35
Speaker 1: were part of the means of instruction. Medieval drama had
1:54:39
Speaker 1: originated in the church's effort to make events described in
1:54:42
Speaker 1: the Gospel more real through their representation dramatically. The teaching
1:54:47
Speaker 1: of manual skill and craftsmanship was entirely the work of
1:54:51
Speaker 1: the masters of the crafts under the general supervision of
1:54:54
Speaker 1: the guilds. The work of the age was made beautiful
1:54:58
Speaker 1: and being handwork, each piece of a work gained the
1:55:00
Speaker 1: interest of individuality. The details of architectural ornament, in consequence,
1:55:05
Speaker 1: show wonderful diversity of form. The naive spirit of the
1:55:09
Speaker 1: ordinary handicraft workmen was often reflected in his work. The
1:55:13
Speaker 1: arts of the goldsmith, silversmith, bell founder, vestment maker, which
1:55:18
Speaker 1: required elaborate embroidery, and the sculptor, were practiced in York
1:55:21
Speaker 1: with excellent results. There has never been a University of York,
1:55:26
Speaker 1: although under Alcuin the School of York was doing work
1:55:29
Speaker 1: of high quality work that gained European fame. Even within
1:55:33
Speaker 1: the last hundred years, when so many provincial universities and
1:55:36
Speaker 1: university colleges have been established, York, one of the most
1:55:40
Speaker 1: appropriate places, has not obtained a university. News and information
1:55:45
Speaker 1: reached the citizens mainly from personal intercourse. Merchants visiting other
1:55:49
Speaker 1: cities discussed with fellow merchants not only their immediate business,
1:55:53
Speaker 1: but also past and current events. Pilgrims, palmers and sailors
1:55:58
Speaker 1: recited their adventures on distant sea and lands, and told
1:56:01
Speaker 1: of the wonders of the world. The ordinary citizen, who
1:56:04
Speaker 1: read little, depended on conversations with better informed citizens and strangers.
1:56:09
Speaker 1: The city Council was continually in communication with the King
1:56:12
Speaker 1: and the great officers of state. Information filtered down from
1:56:16
Speaker 1: the council to the citizens. The messengers often supplied the
1:56:20
Speaker 1: latest semi official news. Officials and servants attached to the
1:56:24
Speaker 1: royal service, or to that of nobles or of ecclesiastics,
1:56:27
Speaker 1: like the Archbishop of York, were the source of much
1:56:30
Speaker 1: political gossip. The news of the country passed to and
1:56:34
Speaker 1: fro between the city and the monastic lands, the castles,
1:56:38
Speaker 1: the manors, and the forests by means of the visits
1:56:40
Speaker 1: of men who lived at those places. Markets and fairs
1:56:45
Speaker 1: and public assemblies, whether the holding of assizes or on
1:56:48
Speaker 1: state visits, were occasions for the dissemination of news. The
1:56:52
Speaker 1: ordinary citizen gathered news and information also from the pulpit,
1:56:55
Speaker 1: and from guild and parochial meetings, and from the Bellman
1:56:59
Speaker 1: the only author irritative news he received at first hand
1:57:02
Speaker 1: he got by listening to the public readings of proclamations.
1:57:07
Speaker 1: In the Middle Ages, educated men who had no inclination
1:57:10
Speaker 1: for the life of the church monastic or secular, nor
1:57:13
Speaker 1: for landed proprietorship, with which was combined hunting and soldiering,
1:57:18
Speaker 1: became clerks. The clerks in the royal service helped in
1:57:21
Speaker 1: the work of administration of national affairs. Tradesmen's sons of
1:57:25
Speaker 1: ability and opportunity succeeded in gaining good positions in this service.
1:57:29
Speaker 1: Nobles also employed clerks. Altogether, there seems to have been
1:57:34
Speaker 1: in the fifteenth century good provision for higher education. The
1:57:37
Speaker 1: people of the Middle Ages were not illiterate. The outstanding
1:57:41
Speaker 1: age of illiteracy, not to mention a host of other
1:57:43
Speaker 1: evils in England, was the age that began with the
1:57:47
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution, when statesmen failed to make the public services
1:57:52
Speaker 1: keep pace with the rapidly increasing population and the rapid
1:57:55
Speaker 1: development of new conditions. That there was as large a
1:57:59
Speaker 1: public blick ready and eager to buy the books that
1:58:02
Speaker 1: printing from type made possible has been regarded as a
1:58:05
Speaker 1: disproof of general illiteracy. The books were published in the vernacular,
1:58:09
Speaker 1: the people read them. It was in fourteen seventy six
1:58:13
Speaker 1: that Caxton set up his press at Westminster. The first
1:58:16
Speaker 1: printing press established in York was set up in fifteen
1:58:19
Speaker 1: o nine. Nevertheless, the general state of education and scholarship
1:58:23
Speaker 1: in England in the fifteenth century was at a low level,
1:58:26
Speaker 1: mainly owing to lack of enthusiasm and to the limited
1:58:29
Speaker 1: subjects of study. Natural science was unable yet to flourish.
1:58:33
Speaker 1: Medieval education was humanistic, but the old springs of this
1:58:37
Speaker 1: form of study were nearly dried up. The Greek classics
1:58:40
Speaker 1: were entirely lost. Even the few Latin classics that the
1:58:43
Speaker 1: Medievals possessed they did not understand aright to Virgil's Enid,
1:58:48
Speaker 1: they gave a Christian interpretation. Grammar was the basis of study,
1:58:52
Speaker 1: which dealt mainly with such works as those of Chico, Virgil, Boethius.
1:58:58
Speaker 1: The fifteenth century the law the last century of an
1:59:01
Speaker 1: age was a backwater in education as in literature. The
1:59:04
Speaker 1: great revival was to come. The fifteenth century was indeed
1:59:07
Speaker 1: a century of revolution, in so far as under the
1:59:10
Speaker 1: almost placid surface of continuity and conformity, there were forces
1:59:15
Speaker 1: of revolted work, probing, accumulating knowledge and experience, perhaps unconsciously
1:59:21
Speaker 1: for the day of liberation and change. The Bible was
1:59:24
Speaker 1: not yet popularly available. Wycliffe had been a pioneer in
1:59:28
Speaker 1: the work of translation and publication, but Tyndale and Coverdale
1:59:31
Speaker 1: in the sixteenth century supplied what he had aimed at
1:59:35
Speaker 1: doing in the fourteenth. The fifteenth century was the quiet
1:59:38
Speaker 1: dark hour before the dawn, As Coleridge expressed it, no
1:59:42
Speaker 1: sooner had the revival of learning sounded through Europe like
1:59:46
Speaker 1: the blast of an archangel's trumpet, than from king to
1:59:49
Speaker 1: peasant there arose an enthusiasm for knowledge. The discovery of
1:59:53
Speaker 1: a manuscript became the subject of an embassy. Erasmus read
1:59:56
Speaker 1: by moonlight because he could not afford a torch, and
1:59:59
Speaker 1: begged a penny, not for the love of charity, but
2:00:01
Speaker 1: for the love of learning. But even then, when the
2:00:04
Speaker 1: enthusiasm and the will were there, such was the dearth
2:00:07
Speaker 1: of material for learning, that, as in the case of Erasmus,
2:00:11
Speaker 1: the pioneers had practically nothing to work at but the
2:00:14
Speaker 1: classical texts and a few meager vocabularies with etymologies of
2:00:18
Speaker 1: medieval scholarship. In fourteen ninety one, Grokin began to teach
2:00:23
Speaker 1: Greek at Oxford in fourteen ninety nine. Erasmus first visited England.
2:00:28
Speaker 1: Referring to his visit to this country in fifteen o
2:00:31
Speaker 1: five to six, he wrote, there are in London five
2:00:35
Speaker 1: or six men who are thorough masters of both Latin
2:00:38
Speaker 1: and Greek, even in Italy, by doubt that you would
2:00:42
Speaker 1: find their equals. England's position was, therefore, in this respect
2:00:46
Speaker 1: a good one section f entertainments. In the Middle Ages,
2:00:52
Speaker 1: holidays were taken at festivals marked in the church calendar.
2:00:56
Speaker 1: Some feasts, like that of Whitsuntide, were universally observed. The
2:01:00
Speaker 1: ordinary length of a festival was eight days, that is,
2:01:03
Speaker 1: the full week the Octave. Apart from pilgrimages, the ordinary
2:01:07
Speaker 1: people traveled little. Moreover, the life and property of travelers
2:01:11
Speaker 1: were not altogether secure in the forest land, with the
2:01:14
Speaker 1: result that treasure and distinguished people traveled under the care
2:01:18
Speaker 1: of an armed escort. A large city like York was
2:01:21
Speaker 1: practically self supporting in public amusements. The fifteenth century saw
2:01:26
Speaker 1: the full development of the religious mystery plays and the
2:01:29
Speaker 1: allegorical morality plays, which, with their comic interludes, had become
2:01:33
Speaker 1: popular from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Feast of
2:01:36
Speaker 1: Corpus Christi, instituted about twelve sixty three, was the most
2:01:40
Speaker 1: important time in the year for the playing of these
2:01:43
Speaker 1: typically medieval dramas. Begun more than three centuries earlier within
2:01:47
Speaker 1: the church and performed by the clergy as a dramatic
2:01:50
Speaker 1: reinforcement of the services and preaching. The medieval drama owed
2:01:53
Speaker 1: its origin mainly to the church, which maintained its influence
2:01:57
Speaker 1: as long as this drama continued. It soon came into
2:02:00
Speaker 1: the care of laymen, who took part in the productions.
2:02:03
Speaker 1: In the fifteenth century, these plays, which were produced almost
2:02:06
Speaker 1: entirely by laymen, were so numerous that they were formed
2:02:08
Speaker 1: in cycles or groups. The texts of some of the
2:02:11
Speaker 1: most famous cycles, those of York, Chester, Wakefield and Coventry,
2:02:15
Speaker 1: have survived. The various trade guilds made themselves responsible for
2:02:19
Speaker 1: the production of one pageant of the local cycle, or
2:02:22
Speaker 1: two or three guilds joined to produce a pageant, so
2:02:25
Speaker 1: that the whole city produced a large number of plays
2:02:27
Speaker 1: to celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi. Among its officers,
2:02:31
Speaker 1: a guild had its pageant master, whose duty it was
2:02:34
Speaker 1: to supervise the guild's dramatic work. The York Plays, the
2:02:38
Speaker 1: texts dating from the middle of the fourteenth century are extant.
2:02:42
Speaker 1: In fourteen fifteen, fifty seven pageant plays were produced. Productions
2:02:46
Speaker 1: were made in York down to fifteen seventy nine. The
2:02:49
Speaker 1: following are examples taken from among the fifty seven plays
2:02:52
Speaker 1: and guilds. The shipwrights produced the Building of the Ark.
2:02:56
Speaker 1: The fishers and mariners produced Noah and the Flood. The
2:02:59
Speaker 1: spices produced the Annunciation. The tailors produced the Birth of Christ.
2:03:04
Speaker 1: The goldsmiths produced the Adoration. The vintners produced the Wedding
2:03:08
Speaker 1: in Cana. The skinners produced the Entry into Jerusalem. The
2:03:12
Speaker 1: baxters produced the Last Supper. The tapiters and couchers produced
2:03:17
Speaker 1: Christ before Pilot. The sauce makers produced the Death of Judas.
2:03:22
Speaker 1: The buchers produced the Death of Christ. The carpenters produced
2:03:26
Speaker 1: the Resurrection. The scriveners produced the Incredulity of Thomas. The
2:03:30
Speaker 1: tailors produced the Ascension. The mercers produced the Day of Judgment.
2:03:35
Speaker 1: The full cycle gave in dramatic form the leading episodes
2:03:38
Speaker 1: of the scriptures from the Creation to the Last Day,
2:03:42
Speaker 1: while the trade guilds were thus responsible for individual pageants.
2:03:46
Speaker 1: Help and control were given by the Guild of Corpus Christi,
2:03:49
Speaker 1: inaugurated in fourteen o eight and incorporated in fourteen fifty
2:03:52
Speaker 1: nine and the City Council. The guild had a very
2:03:56
Speaker 1: large number of members, among whom were the Archbishop, many
2:03:59
Speaker 1: bishops and nus abbots and nobles. These dramatic productions belonged
2:04:04
Speaker 1: to the religious and social sides of the guilds. The plays, however,
2:04:08
Speaker 1: did not always provoke pleasure, for sometimes members of some
2:04:11
Speaker 1: of the guilds complained of the financial burden they were
2:04:14
Speaker 1: forced to bear in order to produce the plays allotted
2:04:17
Speaker 1: to them. The guilds also took part in public processions
2:04:21
Speaker 1: with torches on Corpus Christie Day in celebration of this
2:04:24
Speaker 1: popular festival. In the processions, which were closely connected with
2:04:28
Speaker 1: the religious and guild phases of city life, their walked
2:04:31
Speaker 1: city clergy wearing their surplices, the Master of the Guild
2:04:34
Speaker 1: of Corpus Christi, the Guild officials, the bearers of the
2:04:38
Speaker 1: Shrine of the Guild, the mayor, aldermen and corporation and
2:04:41
Speaker 1: officers and members of the Guild of Corpus Christie and
2:04:44
Speaker 1: of the city trade guilds. As the procession went on
2:04:47
Speaker 1: its way, litanies and chants were sung by the clergy.
2:04:51
Speaker 1: The shrine, the central feature of the procession, was presented
2:04:54
Speaker 1: in fourteen forty nine. It was itself of guilt and
2:04:57
Speaker 1: had many images, some of which were gilded, while the
2:05:00
Speaker 1: main ones under the steeple were in mother of pearl,
2:05:03
Speaker 1: silver and gold. To it were attached rings, brooches, girdles, buckles, beads, gourds,
2:05:10
Speaker 1: and crucifixes in gold and silver and adorned with coralant jewels.
2:05:15
Speaker 1: On the occasion of the processions and performances of pageants,
2:05:19
Speaker 1: as at fairs, the city was filled with a boisterous multitude,
2:05:23
Speaker 1: which turned what was by traditional religious exercise and entertainment
2:05:27
Speaker 1: to a time of riotous merrymaking and uncouth disorder. In
2:05:31
Speaker 1: fourteen twenty six, a kind of crusade was preached by
2:05:34
Speaker 1: a friar miner, William Melton, against the riotous and a
2:05:38
Speaker 1: drunken conduct of the people at the Corpus Christi festival.
2:05:41
Speaker 1: He denounced the disgracing of the festival and affirmed that
2:05:45
Speaker 1: the people were forfeiting by their conduct the indulgences granted
2:05:48
Speaker 1: for the festival. The result of the Friar's crusade was
2:05:51
Speaker 1: the holding of a special meeting of the city Council,
2:05:54
Speaker 1: which decided that the processions and pageants were to be
2:05:57
Speaker 1: held on separate days. The pageants on the u s
2:06:00
Speaker 1: Eve of Corpus Christie and the procession on the feast itself.
2:06:03
Speaker 1: Formerly both had taken place on the same day. The
2:06:07
Speaker 1: pageants were produced in suitable parts of the city. Stages
2:06:11
Speaker 1: on wheels were brought to these places, some of the
2:06:13
Speaker 1: mopen spaces, other's main streets. The stages, which were the
2:06:17
Speaker 1: work of citizen workmen, were of three stories, the central
2:06:21
Speaker 1: and principle one the stage proper, representing the Earth demons
2:06:25
Speaker 1: in gaudy attire, came up from the flame region of
2:06:28
Speaker 1: the lowest story. Divine messengers and personages came down from
2:06:32
Speaker 1: the star and cloud adorned tipper story. The tiring room
2:06:36
Speaker 1: was below and behind the stage. The acting was by
2:06:39
Speaker 1: members of the guilds. They no doubt practiced here as elsewhere,
2:06:43
Speaker 1: The ranting delivery of their speeches so denounced by Hamlet
2:06:46
Speaker 1: in his critical address to the players, whom he admonished
2:06:50
Speaker 1: to speak trippingly on the tongue, and not to out herod, Herod.
2:06:54
Speaker 1: There are several references in Shakespeare to these plays of
2:06:57
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. For instance, in Twelfth Night, like to
2:07:01
Speaker 1: the Old Vice, who with dagger of lath, in his
2:07:04
Speaker 1: rage and his wrath cries ah ah to the devil.
2:07:09
Speaker 1: And in Henry the Fifth this roaring devil in the
2:07:12
Speaker 1: old play, that every one may pare his nails with
2:07:15
Speaker 1: a wooden dagger. Stones for spectators were erected by private
2:07:20
Speaker 1: enterprise for profit in many places of the city. The
2:07:23
Speaker 1: general assembly preparatory to the beginning of the performances took
2:07:27
Speaker 1: place on Pageant Green now called Toft Green, which lies
2:07:30
Speaker 1: behind that side of Micklegate, which is opposite Holy Trinity.
2:07:34
Speaker 1: The first performances were made at the gates of Holy
2:07:37
Speaker 1: Trinity Priory on the west side of the river. There
2:07:40
Speaker 1: were four performances in Micklegate, a street near the priory,
2:07:43
Speaker 1: four in Coney Street, the main street on the east
2:07:46
Speaker 1: side of the river, and likewise performances in other parts
2:07:49
Speaker 1: of the city. The last three performances took place at
2:07:52
Speaker 1: the gates of the Minster, in Low Petergate and in Pavement,
2:07:55
Speaker 1: which was one of the city market squares. When Richard
2:07:58
Speaker 1: the Third came to York in fourteen eighty three, part
2:08:01
Speaker 1: of his entertainment consisted of performances of pageants. The only
2:08:05
Speaker 1: other public dramatic entertainments were crude, coarse popular plays done
2:08:10
Speaker 1: by strolling players. A medieval crowd at fair time was
2:08:14
Speaker 1: entertained by mountebanks, tumblers, and similar rough makers of unrefined mirth.
2:08:20
Speaker 1: The Corporation had a band of minstrels in its service.
2:08:24
Speaker 1: Of physical games, Archery was the most practiced. This was
2:08:28
Speaker 1: the national physical exercise, one which had helped the English
2:08:31
Speaker 1: soldiers to gain a great reputation for themselves, as at
2:08:34
Speaker 1: Agincourps fourteen fifteen. At York, the butts where men practiced
2:08:39
Speaker 1: archery were outside the city walls. Section g classes, class
2:08:44
Speaker 1: divisions were well marked. They appeared in manners, in dress,
2:08:48
Speaker 1: and in occupation. Fashions varied considerably as the century progressed.
2:08:53
Speaker 1: They were close fitting dresses and loose ones, small head
2:08:56
Speaker 1: dresses like the call a jeweled net to bind in
2:08:59
Speaker 1: the hair, and high and broad erections that went to
2:09:02
Speaker 1: the other extreme. Men now wore their hair long later
2:09:05
Speaker 1: they had its close cropped. Perhaps the most wonderful fashion
2:09:08
Speaker 1: was that which men followed in wearing hose of different colours.
2:09:12
Speaker 1: With all the vagaries of fashion, the most striking feature
2:09:15
Speaker 1: of dress was the use of rich and a manifold
2:09:18
Speaker 1: variety of colours. Excepting the case of the dress of
2:09:22
Speaker 1: the religious, which was generally of a somber hue, colour
2:09:25
Speaker 1: characterized men's clothes as much as it did the dresses
2:09:28
Speaker 1: of women. The doublet was the coat of the time.
2:09:31
Speaker 1: Sleeves were generally big, long and pointed. Shoes were characteristic,
2:09:35
Speaker 1: But it was the cloak that proved so effective a
2:09:38
Speaker 1: piece of dress, the cloak that has such scenic possibilities,
2:09:42
Speaker 1: that can so nicely express character. There were only few
2:09:45
Speaker 1: kinds of personal ornament. The most usual were brooches, belts,
2:09:49
Speaker 1: chains and pendants, and especially finger rings, of which the
2:09:53
Speaker 1: signet ring was a popular form. The nobles great landowners,
2:09:58
Speaker 1: in many cases of Norman origin, were lords over a
2:10:01
Speaker 1: considerable number of people. York, being a royal city, escaped
2:10:05
Speaker 1: many of the troubles consequent on rule by an immediate overlord.
2:10:08
Speaker 1: Besides himself, his family and personal servants, a lord provided
2:10:12
Speaker 1: for a retinue of armed retainers who formed a kind
2:10:15
Speaker 1: of bodyguard and a force to serve the king as
2:10:18
Speaker 1: occasion demanded. In addition, important household officials such as secretaries
2:10:23
Speaker 1: and treasurers. Among noblemen's followers there were many dependents, some
2:10:27
Speaker 1: no doubt parasites, but a number, especially if literary, men,
2:10:31
Speaker 1: in need of patronage to help them to live as
2:10:34
Speaker 1: well as to pursue their vocation. The different kinds of
2:10:37
Speaker 1: religious men have already been mentioned, from archbishops and abbots
2:10:41
Speaker 1: to the scurreleous impostors who used a religious exterior to
2:10:44
Speaker 1: rob poor people at whose expense they lived well a wandering, loose,
2:10:48
Speaker 1: hypocritical life. In York there were monks and friars, cathedral,
2:10:53
Speaker 1: parochial and chantry priests and clerks. The monastic life was
2:10:57
Speaker 1: a recognized profession in the monos. There were, besides regular monks,
2:11:02
Speaker 1: novices or those who aspired to take the full monastic vows. And,
2:11:06
Speaker 1: especially in the fifteenth century, by which time the importance
2:11:09
Speaker 1: of lowly arduous service for the brethren and personal labour
2:11:12
Speaker 1: had lapsed, a very large number of semi religious and
2:11:16
Speaker 1: lay brethren who were really servants to the regular monks.
2:11:19
Speaker 1: In the fifteenth century, the religious houses were extremely wealthy.
2:11:23
Speaker 1: Some of the monks were of noble birth. Nobles, when traveling,
2:11:26
Speaker 1: usually lodged at the monastic houses which were dotted all
2:11:29
Speaker 1: over England. The kings resided often at abbey's when visiting
2:11:33
Speaker 1: the provinces. Richard the Third, when Duke of Gloucester, resided
2:11:36
Speaker 1: at the Austin Friary In York. The one monastic house
2:11:40
Speaker 1: for women was Saint Clement's Nunnery. There were moreover sisterhoods
2:11:44
Speaker 1: in the hospitals of for example, Saint Leonard and Saint Nicholas.
2:11:49
Speaker 1: Saint Leonard's Hospital, among its many functions, was a home
2:11:52
Speaker 1: of royal pensioners. The townspeople were chiefly merchants and tradesmen,
2:11:57
Speaker 1: and those they employed, and the wives and fairs memories
2:12:00
Speaker 1: of all of them. Men of this type, both rich
2:12:02
Speaker 1: and poor, rose to important positions in trade and city life,
2:12:06
Speaker 1: and in the king's service. Some entered the service of nobles.
2:12:10
Speaker 1: Great dignity was attached to the higher positions of authority
2:12:14
Speaker 1: in city and guilled life. Trade led to wealth and
2:12:18
Speaker 1: increased comfort and a higher social state. Men in the
2:12:22
Speaker 1: king's service received preferment more often than direct monetary reward.
2:12:27
Speaker 1: Women had only the monastic life to enter as a profession,
2:12:31
Speaker 1: they could become full members of a number of the
2:12:34
Speaker 1: York trade guilds. The social position of women in the
2:12:37
Speaker 1: retrograde fifteenth century fully agrees with the absence of women
2:12:41
Speaker 1: from among those who achieved notability in the city during
2:12:44
Speaker 1: the century, the most interesting type of citizens was that
2:12:48
Speaker 1: composed of the freemen, who formed the vast majority of
2:12:51
Speaker 1: the inhabitants. As the name implies, they were historically the
2:12:55
Speaker 1: descendants of the men who in earlier times were freed
2:12:57
Speaker 1: from serfdom. It was the freemen who, through the mayor
2:13:01
Speaker 1: and corporation, paid rent to the King for the city,
2:13:04
Speaker 1: its rights and possessions. There are still, it may be noted,
2:13:08
Speaker 1: freemen of the city, distinct from those distinguished men who
2:13:11
Speaker 1: have received its honorary freedom. The main privileges of the
2:13:14
Speaker 1: medieval freemen included the right of trading in the city
2:13:17
Speaker 1: and of voting. They also had rights over the common
2:13:20
Speaker 1: lands attached to the city, and they were eligible to
2:13:23
Speaker 1: fill the offices of local civic government if thought wealthy
2:13:26
Speaker 1: enough to be elected into such a close self elected corporation.
2:13:32
Speaker 1: Soldiers of the Royal Army were stationed in York at
2:13:35
Speaker 1: the Castle. The Wars of the Roses Wars of Kings
2:13:38
Speaker 1: and Nobles lasted from fourteen fifty five to fourteen eighty five,
2:13:42
Speaker 1: and although York itself hardly experienced the warfare, it saw
2:13:46
Speaker 1: contingents of the forces of both sides, as well as
2:13:49
Speaker 1: the leaders and royal heads of both parties. There lived
2:13:52
Speaker 1: in the city a number of men in the royal service.
2:13:55
Speaker 1: Some worked at the administrative offices of the Royal Forest
2:13:58
Speaker 1: of Galtres Davy Hall, where the chief officer himself dwelt.
2:14:02
Speaker 1: There were also the men who worked at the Royal Fishpond,
2:14:05
Speaker 1: near which was Fishergate, in which street most of these
2:14:08
Speaker 1: men lived. Those afflicted with leprosy, a disease which in
2:14:13
Speaker 1: England disappeared towards the end of the fifteenth century, dwelt
2:14:16
Speaker 1: apart for fear of infecting the healthy. The four hospitals
2:14:20
Speaker 1: outside the four main entrances to the city served to
2:14:23
Speaker 1: keep the disease isolated. York received from time to time
2:14:27
Speaker 1: a large number and a great diversity of visitors. Distinguished
2:14:31
Speaker 1: visitors usually received gifts from the Corporation, Kings, queens and
2:14:35
Speaker 1: full Court and retinue came, and sometimes the entire houses
2:14:39
Speaker 1: of Parliament. At such times, great crowds of nobles, spiritual, lords, commoners, officers,
2:14:45
Speaker 1: military and civil thronged the city and taxed its accommodation.
2:14:49
Speaker 1: On such an occasion as Richard the Third's attendants at
2:14:52
Speaker 1: the Minster for Mass or the visit of Henry the fifth,
2:14:55
Speaker 1: the narrow streets were packed to suffocation, with people assembled
2:14:59
Speaker 1: to watch the prison sessions of gorgeously arrayed sovereigns, princes, peers, ecclesiastics,
2:15:04
Speaker 1: soldiers and distinguished commoners the Duke of Gloucester afterwards. Richard
2:15:09
Speaker 1: the third was very popular in the North, especially in York,
2:15:12
Speaker 1: where he was received, as in fourteen eighty three, with
2:15:15
Speaker 1: magnificence and festivity. The North was loyal to him and
2:15:19
Speaker 1: gave him much support in his political schemes. The visits
2:15:23
Speaker 1: of the royal judges of a size of sailors and
2:15:25
Speaker 1: pilgrims have already been mentioned. Peddlers, who were active nomad
2:15:30
Speaker 1: tradesmen were always to be found in town and country
2:15:33
Speaker 1: dealing in their small wares. Last, and some of the
2:15:37
Speaker 1: unhappiest among the types of people to be found in
2:15:41
Speaker 1: a medieval city were serfs who had absconded from the
2:15:44
Speaker 1: lands or the service to which they were bound. They
2:15:47
Speaker 1: sometimes fled to a city for the security it afforded. Serfdom, however,
2:15:51
Speaker 1: was rapidly disappearing. Chapter five conclusion. Life in York in
2:15:58
Speaker 1: the fifteenth century was active. Trade home and continental was flourishing.
2:16:03
Speaker 1: Building operations were in hand. Work was always proceeding at
2:16:07
Speaker 1: the Minster or at one or other of the religious
2:16:09
Speaker 1: houses and churches. There were so many social elements established
2:16:13
Speaker 1: in and visiting York that something of interest was always
2:16:16
Speaker 1: taking place. Entertainments were plentiful, and pageants were as well
2:16:20
Speaker 1: produced in York as anywhere in the Kingdom. The city
2:16:23
Speaker 1: enjoyed a particularly large measure of local government. Its reputation
2:16:28
Speaker 1: was great. According to contemporary standards, it was a fine,
2:16:31
Speaker 1: prosperous city, one that contained resplendent ecclesiastical buildings that were
2:16:35
Speaker 1: second to none. In short, it was a full noble city.
2:16:40
Speaker 1: Although the present city looks in parts more typically medieval
2:16:44
Speaker 1: than modern York to day forms a very great contrast
2:16:47
Speaker 1: with the fifteenth century city. We are separated from the
2:16:51
Speaker 1: fifteenth century by the Renaissance, the Reformation, and Tudor England
2:16:55
Speaker 1: by the Civil War and the restoration by the Age
2:16:58
Speaker 1: of prose and reason, the keen minded and rough mennered
2:17:02
Speaker 1: eighteenth century by the Industrial Revolution, and by that second Renaissance,
2:17:07
Speaker 1: the Victorian Age, during which the amenities of daily life
2:17:11
Speaker 1: were revolutionized. Radical changes are to be seen, for example,
2:17:15
Speaker 1: in the style of architecture, the mode of transmission of news,
2:17:18
Speaker 1: the methods of transport, the form of municipal government, the
2:17:22
Speaker 1: maintenance of the public peace, and in social relationships, more
2:17:26
Speaker 1: particularly with regard to the industry and commerce, and the
2:17:29
Speaker 1: parts played by employer and employed. The number of inhabitants
2:17:34
Speaker 1: to day is about six times that of the medieval city.
2:17:37
Speaker 1: The contrast, which is so great in most ways as
2:17:39
Speaker 1: to be quite obvious, is an interesting and profitable study,
2:17:43
Speaker 1: but it might have been founded on more precise data.
2:17:46
Speaker 1: For great as is the amount of valuable material that
2:17:49
Speaker 1: York can supply concerning its history, investigation shows how much
2:17:54
Speaker 1: greater that amount would have been had the city and
2:17:57
Speaker 1: its rulers during the last century or two realize the
2:18:00
Speaker 1: value of the accumulated original historical riches that it contained.
2:18:04
Speaker 1: Whereas the moderns obliterated practically all they came against. Fortunately,
2:18:09
Speaker 1: the earlier people were content to make no change beyond
2:18:13
Speaker 1: what was immediately necessary. Hence the survival of material most
2:18:17
Speaker 1: valuable to the historian and archaeologist. York as it is
2:18:21
Speaker 1: today is a city marvelously rich in survivals of past ages.
2:18:26
Speaker 1: It is also, as a result, especially of the nineteenth century,
2:18:30
Speaker 1: a city of destruction. While we may regret but not
2:18:33
Speaker 1: repine at the disappearance of much of interest and value
2:18:37
Speaker 1: as the result of progress, yet wanton, ruthless destruction, such
2:18:41
Speaker 1: as has taken place within the last century, deserves the
2:18:44
Speaker 1: sternest denunciation in spite of its being in consequence a
2:18:48
Speaker 1: city of destruction. York is a storehouse of original material
2:18:53
Speaker 1: for the history of England. Its records are in earth, stone, brick, wood, plaster,
2:18:59
Speaker 1: bone and coin, metal, on parchment, paper and glass, above
2:19:04
Speaker 1: the ground and below it. Everywhere and in every form.
2:19:07
Speaker 1: This wealth of historical material, connected with practically every period
2:19:12
Speaker 1: of our national history, is a priceless possession, and one
2:19:15
Speaker 1: that is not yet exhausted. The end of chapter five,
2:19:21
Speaker 1: End of Life in a Medieval City by Edwin Benson